DO  fHEY  REALLY 
RESPECT  US? 6?OTHER 


ESSAYS 


r* 


CO 

• 


MARGARET  COLLIER  GRAHAM 


GIFT  OF 
cA  \q 


DE  WITT  &  SMELLING 
BOOKSELLERS 

9  TELEORAPH  Ml.  OAKLAND,  "CAL 


DO  THEY 
REALLY  RESPECT  US? 

AND  OTHER  ESSAYS 

BY 

MARGARET  COLLIER  GRAHAM 

AUTHOR  OF 

STORIES  OF  THE  FOOT-HILLS 


SAN  FRANCISCO 

A.  M.  ROBERTSON 

1912 


COPYRIGHT 

1911 
BY  A.  M.  ROBERTSON 


TAYLOR,  NASH  &  TAYLOR 
San  Francisco 


LOVINGLY  DEDICATED  TO 
MARIAN  OSGOOD  HOOKER 


260161 


PREFACE 

Many  friends  have  asked  that  a 
sketch  of  the  author's  life  be  included 
in  this  posthumous  volume,  but  the 
editors  believe  that  the  following 
whimsical  "Autobiography"  will  be 
more  satisfactory,  as  being  from  Mrs. 
Graham's  own  pen,  than  any  account 
of  their  own: 

I  was  born  in  1850,  but  this  is  only  hearsay 
and  I  hope  exaggerated.  I  have  lived  ever 
since  though  I  have  been  half  dead  at  times.  I 
have  lived  a  good  deal  and  have  found  it,  on 
the  whole,  interesting.  I  have  lived  in  Cali- 
fornia since  1876  and  have  in  consequence  no 
desire  to  go  to  heaven.  I  have  been  in  love  and 
in  debt  many  times  but  have  always  got  out. 
I  am  afraid  of  nothing  but  the  newspapers.  I 
have  found  one  thing  worth  while:  friends. 
And  I  deeply  regret  that  I  have  not  been  able 
to  give  the  world  as  much  pleasure  as  it  has 
given  me. 

Although  Mrs.  Graham  was  most 
widely  known  as  a  writer  of  short 


Preface  stories,  her  public  addresses  have 
made  her  name  deeply  respected  in 
Southern  California;  and  in  private 
life  her  practical  wisdom  and  ready 
sympathy  helped  many  men  and  wo- 
men to  go  their  ways  more  happily. 
She  practiced  a  philosophy  more 
stern  than  she  preached,  putting  aside 
afflictions  grievous  enough  to  daunt 
the  bravest. 

A  perusal  of  the  following  pages 
will  show  that  Mrs.  Graham's  atten- 
tion was  strongly  attracted  to  the 
almost  dramatic  transformations  that 
have  made  the  world  of  today  so 
different  from  that  of  her  youth,  so 
different,  especially,  for  women.  The 
reader  who  has  observed  how  far  a 
few  years  have  carried  us  socially 
from  the  last  generation  will  find  some 
aspects  of  that  long  swift  march  here 
accounted  for,  perhaps  in  a  new  light, 
by  a  keen  observer,  often  humorously 
and  always  sympathetically.  A  few 
of  the  papers  are  on  literary  topics,  but 
literature  and  life  were  so  inseparable 
in  their  author's  view  that  these  selec- 


tions  will  be  found  as  full  of  human  Preface 
interest  as  the  rest.  All  of  the  papers 
are  occasional ;  some  of  them  were  pre- 
pared for  small  companies  of  friends, 
others  for  large  audiences,  but  none 
of  them  for  publication.  It  was  only 
the  requests  of  many  who  heard  them 
that  finally  decided  their  author  to  re- 
vise a  few  for  printing.  But  Mrs. 
Graham's  last  years  were  filled  with 
pain,  and  although  she  refused  to  sur- 
render to  invalidism  her  strength  suf- 
ficed only  for  immediate  affairs.  Nev- 
ertheless she  sometimes  mentioned 
the  proposed  volume,  and  it  is  be- 
lieved that  her  intention  has  been 
fairly  represented. 

Mrs.  Graham  was  especially 
touched  by  the  devotion  of  one  of  her 
young  friends  who  carefully  copied 
and  bound  the  papers  here  printed, 
and  many  others.  The  dedication  of 
this  volume  is  a  recognition  of  that 
attachment  and  is  indeed  the. only  de- 
tail which  the  author  had  definitely 
planned. 

There  has  been  no  attempt  to  edit 


Vll 


Preface  the  manuscript  other  than  to  remove 
a  few  ephemeral  local  allusions,  intro- 
ductory words  and  certain  passages 
that  repeat  others  found  elsewhere. 


Vlll 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Do  They  Really  Respect  Us?        ....  1 

Social  Mendicants 27 

Some  Immortal  Fallacies 53 

A  New  Point  of  View 79 

The  Modern  Heroine 102 

The  Way  to  Altruria 125 

A  Matter  of  Conscience 152 

Why  Pity  the  Poor? 178 

Earning  Her  Bread  —  and  Jam     ....  185 

The  Virtue  of  Hatred 193 

Rights  and  the  Right .198 

High  Notions 204 

Just  After  Christmas 208 

How  to  Read  Fiction 215 

The  Historical  Novel 236 

What  Is  an  Immoral  Novel? 244 

If  I  Were 258 


IX 


DO  THEY  REALLY  RESPECT 

US? 

From  the  beginning  of  civilization 
men  have  said  complimentary  things 
of  women.  From  the  last  chapter  of 
Proverbs  to  the  last  issue  of  the  daily 
paper  we  find  no  lack  of  pleasant 
sayings  in  appreciation  of  womanly 
virtues.  Indeed  this  seems  to  have 
been  a  very  early  custom,  for  nothing 
is  said  of  the  return  made  to  the  vir- 
tuous woman  of  Biblical  repute,  by  her 
admiring  husband,  save  that  "he 
praises  her."  This,  it  appears,  has 
been  the  coin  in  which  women  have 
been  paid  for  self-sacrifice  from  the 
beginning  of  time. 

Now  compliment  is  not  the  lan- 
guage of  equality.  There  is  a  sugges- 
tion of  compensation,  or  at  the  best, 
solace  for  deprivation  in  it.  -Men  do 
not  indulge  much  in  it  toward  each 
other  without  arousing  suspicion. 


A  Do  they  :L -remember,  when  a  very  young 
Respec?Us  §"ir^  hearing  a  man  say,  apropos  of  the 
departure  of  some  woman  from  the 
conventional  feminine  industrial  rut, 
"I  am  sure  no  one  respects  a  woman 
more  than  I  do,  in  her  proper  place" ! 
It  had  not  occurred  to  me  to  doubt 
it  before,  but  the  seed  thus  sown 
sprouted,  and  skepticism  concerning 
the  respect  of  man  has  ever  since  flour- 
ished in  my  mind. 

Really  I  think  the  pleasant  things 
which  most  men  say  and  no  doubt 
think  they  think  concerning  women 
are  the  result  of  kindly  feeling.  Her 
lot  seems  to  them  so  unendurable,  her 
condition  so  unspeakable,  that  they 
are  constrained  to  offer  her  such  con- 
solation as  lies  in  their  power  for  the 
unfairness  of  fate.  Women  never  find 
it  necessary  to  assert,  much  less  to  in- 
sist that  they  respect  men  as  a  sex. 
Possibly  they  are  more  truthful  than 
men,  but  it  is  evident  that,  whatever 
may  be  the  cause,  men  do  not  suffer 
from  this  lack  of  appreciation. 

Do  not,  I  pray,  misunderstand  me. 


I  am  quite  willing  to  acknowledge  Do  They 
that  men  love  women,  and  I  know  that  Respect  Us 
it  is  often  said  that  there  can  be  no 
real  love  without  respect.  This  lat- 
ter statement  we  all  know  to  be  false. 
Mothers  and  fathers  love  their  chil- 
dren without  feeling  for  them  any- 
thing approaching  deference ;  parental 
affection  is  a  mixture  of  pity,  tender- 
ness, hope,  pride  and  selfishness. 
Sometimes  one  of  these  predominates, 
sometimes  another;  but  in  any  case 
the  love  is  real,  without  a  trace  of 
respect. 

When  a  woman  is  young  she  tries 
hard  to  believe  that  men  mean  what 
they  say,  but  as  she  grows  older  and 
the  compliments  become  rarer  she 
realizes,  if  at  all  astute,  that  it  is  not 
woman  that  man  respects,  in  spite  of 
his  protestations,  but  himself.  Just 
in  so  far  as  a  woman  ministers  to  his 
comfort,  convenience  and  progress,  he 
respects,  or  says  he  respects  her. 
When  she  disregards  this  and  seeks, 
as  he  always  claims  the  right  to  do, 
her  own  advancement,  convenience 


Do  They    and   development,  regardless  of  his, 
RespecTus    sne  immediately  forfeits  his  "respect," 
as  he  chooses  to  call  it. 

Of  course  there  has  always  been 
the  church  to  reckon  with  in  the  atti- 
tude of  men  toward  women;  for  in 
spite  of  the  boasted  claim  that  Chris- 
tianity and  the  advancement  of  wo- 
man have  gone  hand  in  hand,  the 
church  has  always  taught  directly  the 
inferiority  of  woman.  As  Christianity 
is  thus  far  the  best  religion  civilization 
has  produced,  and  as  woman  has  pro- 
gressed with  civilization,  just  as  might 
has  yielded  to  right  in  other  quarters, 
the  advance  of  woman  and  the  prog- 
ress of  Christianity  have  kept  pace; 
but  not  through  direct  religious  teach- 
ing; that,  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the 
modern  liberal  ministry  to  disguise 
the  fact,  has  always  been  outspokenly 
on  the  side  of  man's  supremacy  and 
the  subjection  of  woman.  We  can  un- 
derstand therefore,  the  attitude  of  the 
theologian  on  this  subject  and  extend 
to  it  such  consideration  as  we  may 
individually  feel  for  theology.  It  is  no 


doubt  even  today,  though  indirectly,  Do  They 
an  important  factor  in  public  opinion, 
or  rather  public  prejudice;  and  many 
a  man  who  has  long  since  deserted  the 
creed  of  the  church,  is  a  devout  be- 
liever in  her  teaching  still.  Not  God 
has  decreed  it,  he  says,  but  Nature. 

To  exchange  for  one  week  his  life 
of  freedom,  of  initiative,  of  activity 
for  her  parasitic,  irresponsible,  "pro- 
tected" existence  would  be  to  him  un- 
bearable, and  the  only  excuse  which 
the  average  man  finds  for  such  rank 
injustice  is  in  making  himself  think 
that  "women  are  different/'  have 
different  tastes  and  instincts.  "A 
mother's  arm,"  the  callow  newspaper 
reporter  assures  us,  "never  tires" ;  "the 
heart  of  a  true  woman  clings  more 
closely  to  her  husband  the  more 
cruelly  he  abuses  her";  and  other  like 
fictions  find,  even  in  sensible  men,  seri- 
ous consideration,  not  to  say  belief. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  women  and 
men,  save  for  the  different  tactics  in- 
spired by  different  economic  relations, 
love  and  hate  for  the  same  reasons. 


Do  They  A  man's  arm  grows  tireless  when  his 
RespectUs  baby's  life  depends  upon  its  strength. 
A  woman  kisses  the  fist  that  fells  her 
if  that  same  fist  is  to  her  the  only 
source  of  supply;  but  as  for  loving  it 
—  do  not  deceive  yourselves,  my 
brothers,  and  do  not  wonder  that  she 
is  restless  under  dependence  which 
would  gall  you  beyond  endurance,  for 
she  is  made  of  the  same  stuff  as  your- 
selves. 

Try  just  for  a  little  to  apply  to  her 
the  same  test  you  apply  to  yourselves. 
How  frequently  we  hear  it  asserted 
that  a  poor  man  who  marries  a  rich 
woman  is  placed  in  a  most  humiliating 
position.  If  marriage  were  what  it 
should  be  this  would  not  be  true;  but 
since  it  is  what  it  is,  why  is  not  the 
position  of  the  poor  woman  who  mar- 
ries a  rich  man,  or  a  man  who  be- 
comes rich,  equally  humiliating?  She 
may  strive  by  a  thousand  fallacies  and 
mental  evasions  to  escape  from  the 
consequences,  but  she  cannot.  Men 
do  not  respect  dependence,  and  wo- 
men seem  to  them  dependent.  Gen- 


erally  speaking  they  are  right.    They   Do  They 
have  my  sympathy  in  the  lack  of  re-    Respect  Us 
spect,  but  not  in  their  effort  to  main- 
tain the  conditions  which  produce  it, 
nor  in  their  effort  to  deceive  them- 
selves and  her. 

As  we  grow  older  we  cease  to  blink 
the  facts.  We  allow  ourselves  the 
privilege  of  saying  what  we  think. 
And  for  some  months  I  have  inter- 
ested myself  in  gathering  together 
evidence  bearing  upon  this  matter. 
Much  of  it  is  circumstantial  but  often 
it  is  refreshingly  frank,  even  ingenu- 
ous, and  very  direct.  The  following 
I  take  from  a  daily  paper. 

THE  MOTHERS. 

No  organized  body  of  people  could  be  more 
welcome  in  Los  Angeles  than  the  Mothers' 
Congress.  Perhaps  it  would  not  be  too  much 
to  say  that  this  organization  is  the  most  wel- 
come of  any  that  might  come.  For,  of  all  the 
people  in  the  world,  there  are  none  to  compare 
with  the  mothers  in  our  affections,  our  grati- 
tude and  our  respect. 

This  sounds  very  well.    No  doubt  the 
man  who  wrote  it  believed  he  was  tell- 


Do  They  ing  the  truth.  But  one  finds  it  hard 
RespecTus  to  reconcile  with  the  universal  mascu- 
line contempt  bestowed  upon  "a 
mother's  boy,"  "a  boy  tied  to  his 
mother's  apron  string";  and  a  child- 
less woman  finds  her  loneliness  tem- 
pered by  the  supercilious  attitude  of 
the  callow  youth  toward  everything 
feminine:  an  attitude  carefully  fos- 
tered too  often  by  his  father,  for  boys, 
let  us  hope,  are  not  born  into  the  world 
with  a  contempt  for  the  women  who 
bear  them. 

That  this  contempt  is  acquired  at  a 
very  early  age,  however,  we  must 
acknowledge.  A  woman  calling  upon 
a  stranger  asked  the  number  of  her 
hostess'  children.  "I  have  four  little 
boys,"  was  the  answer.  "Oh,"  said 
the  visitor  sympathetically,  "one  of 
your  little  boys  should  have  been  a  lit- 
tle girl!"  Whereupon  one  of  the 
small  male  quartette  who  was  sitting 
unnoticed  in  a  corner  grumbled,  "I'd 
like  to  know  who'd  a  been  'er!  I 
wouldn't  a  been  'er,  and  Tom  wouldn't 
a  been  'er,  and  I'm  sure  Jack  wouldn't ! 

8 


I'd  like  to  know  who'd  a  been  'er!"    Do  They 
A  small  boy  who  had  two  older  sisters   Respect  Us 
was  congratulated  upon  the  arrival  of 
a  little  brother  and  asked  if  he  were 
glad.     "Yes,"  he  said,  "if  he  hadn't 
come  there  wouldn't  have  been  any- 
body but  just  me ! "    One  could  repeat 
such  stories  ad  nauseam  to  prove  the 
early  development  of  sex  contempt  on 
the  part  of  boys. 

Little  girls  on  the  contrary  show 
no  corresponding  aversion  unless  now 
and  then  when  teased.  "Tomboy"  is 
not  considered  a  severe  form  of  re- 
proach, in  spite  of  the  efforts  of 
grownups,  and  "a  whistling  girl"  is 
always  rather  proud  of  her  accom- 
plishment; little  girls  take  kindly  to 
overalls,  and  gymnasium  suits  are  not 
abjured  because  they  make  girls  look 
like  boys.  It  is  useless  to  say  that  this 
is  merely  natural  sex  prejudice;  that 
the  contempt  is  mutual;  that  the  man 
dislikes  womanly  traits  in  a  man  be- 
cause they  are  unmanly;  that  the 
terms  "effeminate,"  "womanish,"  etc., 
are  terms  of  reproach  only  when  ap- 


Do  They  plied  to  men;  and  that  the  same  re- 
RespecTus  proach  is  involved  in  the  application 
of  terms  suggestive  of  manly  charac- 
teristics to  woman.  This  is  not  true. 
No  woman  considers  it  other  than  a 
compliment  to  be  told  that  she  has  a 
"virile"  intellect,  that  she  "writes  like 
a  man";  and  no  man  who  tells  her  this 
intends  it  otherwise.  To  ascribe  any 
masculine  mental  trait  to  a  woman  is 
perhaps  the  highest  form  of  compli- 
ment indulged  in  by  men. 

We  hear  much  talk  in  some  quar- 
ters of  the  danger  which  lurks  in  the 
feminization  —  whatever  that  may  be 
—  of  various  institutions  and  indus- 
tries. That  men  should  be  molded  or 
governed  according  to  the  feminine 
idea  seems  to  some  of  the  alarmed 
denizens  of  these  quarters  a  catastro- 
phe which  must  result  in  the  destruc- 
tion of  all  that  is  distinctively  mascu- 
line. If  this  be  true,  woman  herself 
has  been  up  to  this  time  suffering  from 
masculinization.  She  has  been  edu- 
cated and  governed  according  to  the 
masculine  idea.  She  has  tried  with 

10 


man's  assistance  to  make  herself  what  Do  They 
he  desires.  The  reward  of  merit  held  Respect  Us 
out  to  her  has  always  been  his  ap- 
proval; the  direst  calamity  that  could 
befall  her  to  fail  of  his  esteem.  She 
has  been  urged  to  model  herself  mind 
and  body  upon  his  wishes.  The  result 
has  been  that  anomaly  believed  to  be 
the  womanly  woman  but  in  reality  the 
masculinized  woman;  the  woman  not 
as  God  made  her  but  as  man  has  made 
her.  Man,  who  is  so  afraid  of  femin- 
ization  that  he  cannot  trust  his  deli- 
cate and  susceptible  nature  in  the 
same  classroom  with  women  without 
jeopardizing  his  mental  sex,  has  not 
hesitated  to  subject  her  presumably 
more  sensitive  intelligence  to  endless 
counsels,  dictation  and  warning,  until 
we  have  every  reason  to  believe  that 
the  original  woman  has  entirely  dis- 
appeared. 

Having  in  early  life  observed  this 
universal  contempt  for  femininity,  I 
set  about  seeking  the  cause.  Naturally, 
since  physical  inferiority  as  a  reason 
was  hardly  to  be  predicated  of  civil- 

11 


Do  They  ized  man,  I  decided  that  in  the  process 
RespecTus  °f  evolution  we  had  not  yet  reached 
mental  equality  with  men.  Indeed  in 
my  youth  there  were  those  who  ven- 
tured to  assert  that  women  were  nat- 
urally inferior.  To  dispel  this,  of 
course  women  set  about  improving 
themselves.  The  matter  seemed  sim- 
ple enough :  "They  do  not  respect  us/' 
I  said,  "because  we  are  ignorant; 
when  we  acquire  learning  it  will  be 
otherwise."  Imagine  then  my  sur- 
prise to  learn,  as  I  did  recently,  that 
the  disrespect  for  femininity  is  far 
deeper  seated  than  this;  to  read  in  a 
well-known  and  highly  respectable 
magazine  the  following: 

It  is  the  general  opinion  of  educational  ex- 
perts that  in  the  higher  schools  more  men 
teachers  are  needed.  This  is  not  because  the 
pupils  of  men  teachers  pass  better  examina- 
tions than  the  pupils  of  women  teachers ;  it  is 
because  the  masculine  element  is  needed  in  the 
educational  community;  because,  for  example, 
the  average  boy,  if  he  is  taught  only  by  women, 
conies  to  regard  scholarship  as  a  purely  fem- 
inine accomplishment  and  look  upon  it  with 
something  like  contempt. 

12 


This  was  in  the  Outlook.  Do  They 

In  other  words  instead  of  feminine  Resplct  Us 
scholarship  increasing  the  boy's  re- 
spect for  women,  it  merely  gave  him  a 
contempt  for  scholarship !  This  would 
certainly  indicate  a  sex-antipathy  far 
deeper  seated  than  we  have  supposed. 
It  has  been  the  fashion,  in  America 
at  least,  to  disguise  this  condition  of 
affairs;  but  now  and  then  even  the 
American  man  "speaks  up."  Witness 
that  representative  of  the  New  York 
Schoolmen  who  appeared  before  the 
Legislature  at  Albany  to  oppose  the 
McCarren-Conklin  bill  for  equal  pay 
for  equal  work  on  the  part  of  women 
teachers.  There  is  a  refreshing  frank- 
ness in  the  way  in  which  he  cast  aside 
all  this  hollow  mockery  of  compliment 
and  gave  twelve  reasons  against  equal- 
izing salaries,  the  first  of  which  was 
"his  own  personal  superiority  to  any 
woman" !  Other  minor  reasons  were : 
that  "no  woman  can  uplift  spiritually 
nor  can  she  come  up  to  man's  ideals" ; 
that  "women  have  done  nothing  for 
education";  that  "equal  work  means 

13 


Do  They  equal  ability";  that  "men  exert  a 
RespecTus  man's  influence,  while  a  woman  can 
exert  only  a  woman's  influence";  etc. 
It  is  said  that  the  senators  and  repre- 
sentatives gasped  as  they  listened  to 
him,  whether  from  surprise  at  his 
statements  or  at  his  candor  we  are  not 
informed.  The  editor  of  the  maga- 
zine from  which  I  learned  these  facts 
says  in  conclusion:  "Respect  for  wo- 
men is  one  of  the  first  things  to  be  in- 
culcated in  the  American  boy,  since 
respect  for  women  is  a  quality  which 
springs  from  the  American  ideal,  and 
one  of  which  Americans  have  always 
been  justly  proud." 

The  means  taken  to  inculcate  this 
respect  are  various.  I  read  the  other 
day  in  a  serious  article  on  Longfellow 
written  by  a  well-known  scholar  that, 
"he  had  an  exasperating  way  of  ob- 
serving certain  conventional  duties 
like  an  old  woman."  Did  any  woman 
ever  dream  of  using  the  expression, 
"like  an  old  man,"  as  a  term  of  re- 
proach to  be  applied  to  one  of  her  own 
sex? 

14 


Women,  I  must  confess,  assume  a  DO  They 
cheerful  callousness  to  this  form  of  Respect  Us 
habitual  contempt,  even  though  by  no 
means  indifferent  to  it.  Some  of  them 
share  it,  or  pretend  to  share  it  in  a 
very  palpable  effort  to  appear  "virile." 
There  is  no  way  in  which  a  weak  wo- 
man is  more  likely  to  try  to  strength- 
en her  position  with  men  than  by  slurs 
upon  her  own  sex — not  upon  individu- 
als, that  is  always  ascribed  to  jealousy 
and  is  a  tacit  compliment  to  masculin- 
ity, but  upon  women.  And  the  fact  that 
she  gains  with  men  by  underrating 
women  proves  that  at  heart  men  do 
not  respect  women. 

Why  is  it  the  crowning  disgrace 
of  a  small  boy's  existence  to  be  mis- 
taken for  a  girl?  Why  are  girls' 
clothes  considered  a  by-word  and  a 
scoffing?  Why  does  so  sincere  and 
gentle  a  writer  as  Benson  say,  "What 
a  wretched  thing  in  English  it  is  that 
there  is  no  female  of  the  word  'man' ! 
'Woman'  means  something  quite  dif- 
ferent and  always  sounds  slightly  dis- 
respectful"? Why  do  we  hear  it  said 

15 


Do  They  repeatedly  that  it  is  a  great  pity  for 
RespectUs  a  s'ir^  to  be  plain,  but  that  good  looks 
in  a  man  are  rather  undesirable  than 
otherwise?  Is  personal  appearance, 
then,  a  woman's  entire  stock  in  trade? 
Are  men  so  stupid  as  not  to  see  the 
covert  insult  in  this,  and  are  women  so 
hardened  to  insult  as  not  to  feel  it? 

The  average  Englishman's  posi- 
tion in  this  matter  is  easy  to  under- 
stand. An  interesting  series  of  arti- 
cles in  Nineteenth  Century  and 
After,  contains  some  statements 
which  have  the  merit  of  frankness  if 
not  of  modesty.  The  articles  are  on 
the  subject  of  political  representation. 
American  men,  certainly  the  educated 
class,  however  opposed  to  the  exten- 
sion of  the  suffrage  to  women,  are  al- 
ways ready  to  assert  that  when  wo- 
men desire  it,  the  right  should  be 
granted  to  them.  But  this  English- 
man removes  all  coating  of  sugar  from 
the  bitter  pill;  after  setting  forth  the 
position  of  the  opposition  thus: 

They  welcome  the  exercise,  more  and  more, 
of  consultative  and  advisory  functions,  by  rea- 

16 


Respect  Us 


sonable  and  thoughtful  women,  in  the  coun-  Do  They 
try's  concerns ;  they  welcome  the  presentation 
of  grievances  and  the  suggestion  of  remedies 
by  those  toiling  thousands  of  women  upon 
whom  rests  so  much  of  the  physical  burthen 
of  life.  But  they  are  convinced  that  the  last 
word  in  all  these  matters  ought  to  rest  with 
men  —  even  as  God  has  made  man  "the  head 
of  the  woman." 

He  adds: 

Lastly  (if  I  may  presume  to  give  my  im- 
pressions in  that  respect),  I  believe  that  the 
great  majority  of  Englishmen  would,  for 
their  part,  hold  these  views  if  the  question  of 
women's  suffrage  were  fairly  and  squarely  put 
before  them.  Miss  Stephen  suggests  a  Refer- 
endum to  women.  It  would  be  interesting, 
but  I  do  not  think  it  ought  to  be  decisive.  My 
whole  contention  is  that  the  matter  is  for  men 
to  decide,  whether  by  Referendum  or  by  our 
old-fashioned  method  of  a  General  Election. 
If  I  am  right  in  believing  my  countrymen  are 
against  women's  suffrage,  I  earnestly  hope 
they  will  have  the  courage  of  their  convictions, 
and  resist  it,  no  matter  with  what  volume  of 
female  voices  it  may  be  demanded. 

Even  a  woman  can  understand  this. 
And  even  an  American  woman  real- 
izes the  futility  of  interfering  with 
God,  however  much  she  may  object  to 

17 


Do  They  acknowledging  that  an  Englishman 
RespecTus  ls  better  acquainted  with  the  Al- 
mighty's intentions  concerning  her 
than  she  is  herself.  But  candidly 
there  is  something  to  take  hold  of  in 
such  statements.  They  help  a  woman 
to  know  where  she  is.  The  theory  and 
practice  of  the  Englishman  seem  per- 
fectly consistent,  whereas  those  of  her 
own  countrymen  are  full  of  bewilder- 
ing contradictions.  Do  you  wonder 
that  at  times  she  accuses  the  latter  of 
duplicity  and  longs  to  get  at  his  real 
convictions? 

Personally  I  believe  I  am  actuated 
in  this  investigation  by  purely  scien- 
tific motives.  I  do  not  say  that  I 
should  be  guided  by  male  opinion,  but 
it  would  be  interesting  to  know  what 
it  is.  Why  is  womanhood  esteemed  a 
curse?  Is  it  because  men  are  at  heart 
physical  cowards  and  shrink  from  the 
suffering  that  accompanies  mater- 
nity? I  cannot  believe  it.  Is  it  be- 
cause of  the  limitations  which  they 
have  so  constantly  urged  upon  wo- 
men? Then  why  in  the  name  of 

18 


justice  are  they  not  eager  so  far  as   Do  They 
in  them  lies  to  remove  those  limita-   Respect  Us 
tions? 

I  read  somewhere  recently  the 
statement  by  a  man  who  represented 
a  fair  literary  average,  that  if  one 
could  get  at  the  truth  there  was  not  a 
man  living  who  did  not  consider  him- 
self the  superior  of  any  woman, 
merely  by  virtue  of  his  sex.  I  can 
imagine  that  men  might  find  it  em- 
barrassing to  confess  this,  and  might 
hide  their  embarrassment  under  a 
pretended  flippancy;  but  I  cannot 
imagine  why,  since  sex  is  not  a  matter 
of  choice,  they  should  be  so  cruelly  in- 
different to  the  disadvantages  which 
beset  femininity;  should  seem  to  try 
to  make  themselves  think  that  they 
have  made  up  to  women  by  certain 
privileges  which  would  mean  less  than 
nothing  to  themselves:  by  granting 
them,  in  other  words,  immunity  from 
everything  which  makes  life  worth 
living  to  them. 

There  has  always  been  to  me 
something  incomprehensible  in  the 

19 


Do  They  anxiety  of  men  to  avoid  everything, 
RespecTus  no  matter  how  strong  their  taste 
therefor,  which  savors  of  the  taint  of 
woman's  work.  Not  long  ago  a  man 
whose  eyes  troubled  him  and  made  it 
impossible  for  him  to  follow  his  pro- 
fession of  architecture  closely,  or  to 
read  or  write  constantly,  who  was  not 
strong  enough  and  really  did  not  care 
for  outdoor  sports,  and  who  was  not 
obliged  to  earn  a  living,  confessed  to 
me  that  he  envied  women  their  many 
forms  of  tasteful  handicraft.  He  did 
not  say  it,  but  both  of  us  knew,  that 
he  was  prevented  only  by  the  reproach 
attending  it  from  acquiring  and  prac- 
tising one  of  these  household  arts. 

The  good  qualities  generally  as- 
cribed to  men,  when  found  in  women 
are  always  highly  esteemed.  Courage, 
a  judicial  mind,  self-reliance,  chivalry, 
even  physical  bravery  and,  in  these 
days,  athletic  skill  are  much  lauded  in 
women.  But  I  believe  most  men  con- 
sider it  at  best  a  doubtful  compliment 
to  be  accused  of  gentleness,  of  tender- 
ness, of  self-sacrifice,  of  modesty,  of 

20 


pure  mindedness,  of  personal  virtue,    DO  They 
or  indeed  of  any  womanly  trait.    For-   Aspect  Us 
tunately    many    men    possess    these 
qualities,    and    their   shamefacedness 
concerning  them  is  only  a  part  of  the 
sex-antipathy  so  strangely  felt  toward 
women,  and  apparently  not  by  them. 

I  am  not  blind  to  the  logical  con- 
clusion from  all  this.  Men  are  sup- 
posed to  be  reasonable  beings,  and  if 
they  do  not  respect  us  no  doubt  they 
have  their  reasons.  I  know  that  some- 
one is  lying  in  wait  to  tell  me  that  we 
have  brought  this  upon  ourselves; 
that  time  was  when  womanhood  was 
highly  esteemed,  etc.  But  this  is  not 
true.  There  has  never  been  a  time 
when  gibes  and  sneers  and  manly  con- 
tumely have  not  been  showered  upon 
everything  pertaining  to  femininity. 
Indeed  I  am  disposed  to  think  that  in 
America  and  today  we  fare  better  in 
this  respect  than  in  any  place  at  any 
time  in  the  history  of  civilization.  The 
reasons  for  this  condition  'of  mind 
are  not  therefore  of  recent  origin. 
Possibly  they  may  be  in  the  nature  of 

21 


Do  They  things,  but  the  fact  that  there  has 
RespecTus  been  some  change  for  the  better  in  the 
attitude  of  man  leads  us  to  hope.  And 
to  do  him  justice  I  have  at  times  felt 
that,  all  things  considered,  he  is  not 
entirely  blamable.  I  have  now  and 
then  seen  what  appeared  to  be,  or  at 
least  to  indicate,  a  praiseworthy  effort 
on  his  part  to  mend  his  ways :  like  the 
man  who,  when  fined  for  contempt  of 
court,  said,  "Your  honor,  I  have  never 
expressed  any  contempt  for  this 
court;  on  the  contrary  I  have  care- 
fully concealed  my  feelings/*  Even 
this  is  hopeful;  and  when  we  consider 
some  of  the  obstacles  we  have  placed 
in  his  way,  I  am  constrained  to  think 
he  has  done  fairly  well. 

I  am  willing  to  confess  that  if  there 
were  upon  the  earth  a  creature  who 
was  willing  to  give  up  her  name,  her 
occupation  and  her  home  for  me;  to 
let  me  decide  her  place  of  residence, 
her  employment  and  her  income;  who 
allowed  herself  to  be  given  to  me  by 
a  religious  form;  who  promised  pub- 
licly to  obey  me  —  I  might  love  her 

22 


(considering  the  direful  strait  she  Do  They 
must  have  been  in  to  have  come  to  Inspect  Us 
this,  heaven  knows  I  should  try!),  but 
by  no  superhuman  effort  of  the  will 
could  I  thoroughly  respect  her,  or 
have  for  her  any  real  feeling  of  equal- 
ity. If,  added  to  this,  I  should  see 
her  mincing  about  on  absurdly  high- 
heeled  shoes,  wearing  upon  her  head 
a  tray  of  calico  flowers  and  artificial 
poultry  representing  the  fauna  and 
flora  of  all  climes,  her  bare  arms  and 
neck  showing  chill  and  blue  through 
a  film  of  lace  —  I  am  very  certain  that 
I  should  think  disrespectful  things 
even  if  I  did  not  say  them. 

Mr.  Henry  James  (do  not  be 
alarmed:  I  am  not  going  to  quote 
him)  speaks  of  the  abdication  of  man 
in  America,  and  the  Nation  in  reply 
says  some  very  true  and  rather  morti- 
fying things  concerning  the  social  in- 
feriority of  the  American  man  or, 
more  properly,  concerning  the  social 
preeminence  of  the  American  woman. 
This  latter,  it  is  asserted,  in  no  way 
reflects  or  proves  anything  as  to  the 

23 


Do  They  superior  energy  or  acquirements  of 
RespecTus  woman  herself,  but  merely  indicates 
"the  first  need  of  the  industrial  male 
conqueror,  which  is  to  display  his 
financial  power  through  conspicuous 
leisure."  As  he  does  not  care  for  leis- 
ure himself,  as  he  hates  personal  show 
and  has  no  desire  for  travel  and  fine 
clothes,  and  as  these  are  to  the  busi- 
ness-man only  the  means  of  displaying 
his  success,  he  decks  his  womankind 
out  and  sends  them  forth  to  herald  his 
financial  triumph.  If  this  is  true,  and 
it  has  an  uncomfortable  air  of  truth,  it 
may  also  be  true,  as  the  article  further 
states,  that  "male  ascendancy  is  as 
real  and  at  least  as  strong  in  America 
as  in  any  European  country  short  of 
Turkey." 

American  men  insist  that  they  are 
proud  of  American  women,  and  I  can- 
not believe  that  in  all  of  them  this 
pride  is  merely  a  form  of  self-love; 
that  their  position  is  represented  by 
the  merchant  who  would  disdain  to 
make  a  display  by  arraying  himself  in 
his  own  wares,  but  does  not  hesitate  to 

24 


fill  his  window  with  wax-figures  thus  Do  They 
adorned.  Assuredly  there  are  in  Respect  Us 
America  men  who  take  a  reasonable 
pride  in  the  actual  accomplishments 
of  woman.  I  do  not  think  many  of 
them  are  afraid  of  being  distanced  in 
the  mental  or  business  world  by  her; 
indeed  the  fear  they  express  is  gen- 
erally that  of  woman's  competition 
making  it  impossible  for  them  to  sup- 
port her  in  idleness:  a  consummation 
devoutly  to  be  hoped  for,  and  one 
which  she  certainly  ought  to  welcome 
as  preferable  to  supplying  the  need  of 
"the  industrial  male  conqueror"  to 
display  his  financial  power:  a  position 
hardly  to  be  coveted  by  a  self-respect- 
ing woman,  and  one  not  calculated  to 
command  the  respect  of  man. 

Probably  most  of  us  get  in  this  life 
what  we  deserve.  We  may  inspire 
love,  but  we  must  compel  respect;  and 
possibly  many  of  us,  both  men  and 
women,  are  quite  satisfied  with  love  — 
prefer  it,  indeed.  Yet  so  long  as  some 
men  have  both,  I  cannot  but  believe 
that  there  are  many  women  who  feel 

25 


Do  They    aggrieved   that   only   one   should   be 
RespectUs   within  their  reach. 

Possibly  the  respect  of  men  is  not 
unattainable.  If  it  depends  upon  cir- 
cumstances over  which  they  and  we 
have  no  control  it  is  really  of  little 
value;  and  if  to  acquire  it  we  must,  as 
sometimes  appears,  excite  their  envy, 
the  question  arises  whether  it  is  worth 
while,  whether  it  is  not  better  to  be 
contented  with  our  present  discontent 
—  to  prefer  being  right  to  being  presi- 
dent. This  latter  is,  I  think  the  state 
of  mind  of  most  "contented"  women. 
But  there  is  a  large  class  who  still  feel 
a  shock  when  they  are  brought  face  to 
face  with  the  fact  that  nothing  they 
can  do  or  be  will  save  them  from  per- 
petual insult  based  upon  the  mere  fact 
of  womanhood. 


26 


SOCIAL  MENDICANTS 

It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  the 
Psalmist  was  in  such  haste  when  he 
said  that  all  men  are  liars.  While  he 
was  in  the  mood  there  were  so  many 
other  equally  true  and  forcible  things 
that  he  might  have  said,  things  that 
are  not  considered  exactly  polite  or 
even  safe  in  our  day,  but  which  it 
would  have  been  a  great  relief  to  have 
had  said  for  us  in  terse  and  classic 
English  upon  which  the  copyright  has 
long  since  expired.  For  instance,  if 
he  had  not  been  pressed  for  time,  he 
might  have  added  that  all  women  are 
beggars. 

Of  course  there  are  beggars  and 
beggars;  and  for  purposes  of  classifi- 
cation the  gentler,  weaker,  more  vir- 
tuous, beautiful  and  altogether  su- 
perior—  in  short,  the  sex  —  might  be 
divided  into  primary  and  secondary 
beggars.  The  primary  beggars  are  a 

27 


Social    small   and   very   uninteresting   class, 

Mendicants     ^^  ^  directly  for  themselves.     It  IS 

as  secondary  beggars  —  beggars  for 
others  —  that  Woman  rises  to  her  full 
height,  assumes,  as  it  were,  her  larg- 
est and  most  imposing  W.  To  put  it 
more  briefly,  there  is  beggary  as  a 
curse  and  beggary  as  a  career.  It  is 
to  this  latter  point  that  I  wish  princi- 
pally to  draw  your  attention. 

As  soon  as  a  true  woman  is  certain 
she  has  escaped  the  curse  she  makes 
haste  to  enter  upon  the  career.  She 
begins,  of  course,  with  clothes,  prefer- 
ably men's  clothes ;  and,  as  usual,  the 
brunt  of  her  self-sacrifice  falls  heavily 
upon  those  nearest  and  dearest  to  her. 
She  begs  of  her  bachelor  friends  in  a 
cursory  intermittent  way,  necessarily 
limited  by  her  knowledge  of  their 
wardrobes.  But  the  husband  of  her 
heart  —  imagine  the  state  of  that  man! 

Time  was  when  the  frugal  wife 
who  leaned  forward  while  her  hus- 
band was  telling  her  earnestly  and 
with  statesmanlike  fervor  of  the 
workings  of  the  League  for  Better 

28 


City  Government,  and  lightly  rubbed  Social 
her  forefinger  over  a  slight  abrasion  on 
the  elbow  of  his  coatsleeve,  aroused 
in  her  lord  visions  of  a  work-basket,  a 
silver  thimble  and  delicate  and  skilful 
darning  while  he  read  the  evening 
paper  with  a  crocheted  afghan  about 
his  shoulders.  But  this  was  Solo- 
mon's time,  not  ours.  The  modern 
husband  knows  better.  When  the 
companion  of  his  joys  bends  toward 
him  and  gently  laying  her  hand  upon 
his  knee,  where  a  scarcely  perceptible 
gloss  is  beginning  to  manifest  itself, 
says,  "Thomas,  don't  you  think  this 
suit  is  beginning  to  look  quite  old  and 
scuffed?"  he  knows  that  the  fate  of 
that  suit  is  sealed.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
it  is  not  at  all  old;  indeed  it  is  just  be- 
ginning to  fit  him  comfortably.  The 
aggressive  newness  has  but  just  left  it 
and  the  coat  has  acquired  a  graceful 
slouch  about  the  shoulders  that  makes 
him  feel  quite  like  a  millionaire.  But 
none  of  these  things  move  her.  Re- 
sistance is  worse  than  useless.  Long 
experience  has  told  him  that  that  cov- 

29 


Social    etous  glitter  in  his  wife  s  eye  can  have 

Mendicants     i  ,,       rr^i          *          ,-      ,   , 

but  one  result.  The  place  that  know- 
eth  that  coat  now  will  soon  know  it  no 
more  forever. 

Of  course  a  woman  in  this  state  of 
mind  is  bound  to  go  from  bad  to 
worse.  She  that  gloats  over  moth- 
holes  in  last  winter's  overcoats  and  re- 
joices wantonly  in  shrinkages  caused 
by  dyeing  is  never  safe.  It  is  but  a 
short  step  from  beggary  to  theft. 

I  was  informed  no  more  than  a 
month  ago  by  an  honorable  gentle- 
man, a  man  who  bears,  one  might 
say,  a  national  reputation  for  veracity, 
that  he  had  been  prevented  from  at- 
tending numerous  high  social  func- 
tions by  the  fact  that  the  wife  of  his 
bosom  had  given  away  the  trousers 
that  belonged  to  his  evening  suit.  I 
had  often  missed  him  from  these 
scenes  of  mad  festivity,  but  the  real 
pathos  of  his  absence  had  never  ap- 
pealed to  me  before.  This  same  suf- 
ferer, with  a  tear  glistening  on  his  eye- 
lash, told  me  also  of  another  man,  a 
friend  of  his,  a  retired  army  officer, 

30 


whose  wife  during  a  slight  indisposi-   Social 
tion  of  her  husband  that  confined  him   Mendicants 
to  his  bed  for  a  few  days,  had  given 
away  his  entire  wardrobe,  thus  reduc- 
ing him  at  one  fell  swoop  to  that  desti- 
tution in  which  her  philanthropic  soul 
rejoiced.    Whether  she  then  went  out 
and  begged  old  clothes  for  him  from 
other  men  I  forgot  to  inquire,  but  I 
presume  she  did. 

There  are  men  in  this  community, 
reputable  and  honest  citizens,  who 
clutch  the  lapels  of  their  coats  and 
dodge  into  alleys  and  around  corners 
when  they  see  certain  benevolent  per- 
sons approaching.  Men  have  confided 
these  things  to  me,  not,  I  trust,  be- 
cause I  am  unwomanly  or  lack  the 
true  feminine  spirit,  but  because  I  live 
in  the  country,  where  poverty  is  un- 
known, where  we  spend  the  larger 
part  of  our  time  in  humbly  imploring 
the  needy  to  come  and  work  for  us, 
and  most  of  our  income  in  paying 
them  when  they  decide  that  it  is  too 
lonesome  and  return  to  the  city  —  to 
be  begged  for  by  our  urban  sisters. 

31 


Social  Being  thus  fortunately  situated,  I 
have  never  been  known  to  ask  a  man 
for  his  cloak,  thus  arousing  in  him  a 
fear  that  I  would  some  day  take  his 
coat  also;  and  as  a  consequence  men 
have  felt  a  degree  of  security  concern- 
ing the  temporary  safety  of  their 
wardrobes  in  my  presence,  which  has 
led  to  many  piteous  and  touching 
recitals. 

Indeed  at  times  we  have  mingled 
our  tears,  for,  while  most  women  have 
a  preference  for  men's  clothes  —  I  beg 
you  not  to  misunderstand  me  —  there 
are  exceptions,  and  I  have  at  times 
trembled  for  the  safety  of  a  gown 
grown  dear  from  long  association. 
Only  the  other  day  I  seated  myself  in 
a  streetcar  near  a  woman  of  well- 
known  and  deep-dyed  philanthropy. 
I  saw  her  start  when  I  sat  down,  and 
fix  her  eyes  upon  my  sleeves,  which 
were,  alas!  a  season  too  large.  And 
instantly  I  felt  her  rip  those  sleeves 
out  and  make  of  them  two  pairs  of 
knee-pants  for  Mrs.  Moriarty's  twin 
boys.  Then  she  leaned  back  a  little,  to 

32 


see  if  there  was  sufficient  fullness  in  Social 
the  skirt  to  warrant  a  hope  of  a  waist  Mendicants 
and  petticoat  for  the  second  girl.  And 
just  as  I  was  hesitating  as  to  whether 
it  was  my  duty  to  tell  her  that  I  had  a 
yard  and  a  half  of  the  goods  at  home 
which  the  dressmaker  had  induced  me 
to  purchase  for  fear  sleeves  would  in- 
crease in  size,  the  conductor  called  my 
street.  I  gathered  my  skirts  about  me 
and  scuttled  past  her  as  I  left  the  car, 
and  when  I  landed  on  the  street  and 
saw  her  still  eyeing  me  greedily  from 
the  window,  I  felt  that  I  had  made,  if 
not  a  hairbreadth,  at  least  a  front- 
breadth  escape.  No  one  knows,  no  one 
can  know,  what  fear  is  until  he  has 
fathomed  the  benevolence  of  a  thor- 
oughly good  woman. 

It  is  not  generally  known  that  it  is 
feminine  dread  of  debt  which  lies  at 
the  basis  of  this  universal  beggary  of 
women.  All  good  women  have  a  hor- 
ror of  debt.  Now  with  men  debt  is  a 
pastime,  an  amusement.  A  man  who 
is  out  of  debt  feels  like  a  fish  out  of 
water.  A  man  means  to  pay  his  debts, 

33 


Social  of  course,  and  very  often  he  does.  But 
he  doesn't  pay  them  until  he  has  the 
money,  or  can  borrow  it.  Now  a 
woman  pays  her  debts,  in  money  if  she 
can,  if  not  she  pays  them  in  tears  and 
blood.  They  are  not  her  debts,  she  is 
theirs. 

It  is  to  this  belief  of  woman  in  the 
moral  quality  of  debt  that  much  mas- 
culine suffering  is  to  be  attributed. 
Possibly  there  is  a  business-man  who 
would  dare  go  home  at  night  and  say 
incidentally  to  his  wife,  "My  dear, 
when  I  was  in  the  bank  today  borrow- 
ing a  couple  of  thousand  dollars  I  saw 
..."  etc. ;  but  I  doubt  it.  He  would 
shrink  before  the  awful  look  of  re- 
proach in  that  good  woman's  face. 
He  would  know  that  every  evening 
thereafter  she  would  look  him  in  the 
eye  and  say,  "Thomas,  have  you  paid 
back  that  money?"  All  his  assets 
would  shrink  into  nothingness  before 
that  one  appalling  liability.  What 
seemed  to  him  at  the  time  a  trifling 
business  exigency  would  come  to  ap- 
pear a  crime,  and  by  and  by  in  sheer 

34 


self-defense  he  would  go  to  another   Social 
bank  and  borrow  the  money  that  he 
might  pay  the  debt  and  answer  her  in 
the  affirmative. 

Now,  this  wholesome  horror  of 
debt  on  the  part  of  good  women  is  the 
safety  of  the  church  and  the  bulwark 
of  revealed  religion.  I  trust  you  will 
bear  with  me,  my  sisters,  while  I  eluci- 
date this  matter. 

All  churches,  viewed  from  the  out- 
side, are  in  a  chronic  state  either  of 
erecting  a  new  edifice  or  paying  for 
the  old  one.  There  must  be  a  great 
deal  of  fun  in  building  a  church.  I 
am  assured  of  this  because  men  show 
such  a  lively  interest  in  it  from  the 
beginning,  and  men,  generally  speak- 
ing, are  good  fellows.  There  is  no  de- 
nying the  fact  that  they  are  the  hu- 
morous sex;  they  know  how  to  have 
an  all-round  good  time. 

First,  there  is  selecting  and  buying 
the  lot.  There  are  agents  and  com- 
missions and  abstracts  and  flaws  and 
tax-titles  and  options  and  agreements 
and  deeds  and  suits  to  quiet  title  —  all 

35 


Social  of  which  have  been  the  playthings  and 
amusements  of  men  from  the  begin- 
ning of  time.  Then  there  are  the  ar- 
chitects and  the  plans  and  specifica- 
tions, and  the  elevation  (I  notice  the 
elevation  always  comes  first  and  the 
depression  later),  and  here  even  the 
women  begin  to  see  the  fun.  They 
all  gather  around  the  table  and  look  at 
the  drawings,  with  the  shrubbery 
growing  so  permanently  in  the  front 
yard,  and  the  grass  of  that  peculiar 
seductive  shade  of  green  always  used 
by  architects;  and  the  women  going 
up  the  front  steps  holding  their  para- 
sols in  the  military  manner  which  no 
one  but  an  architect  can  understand. 
And  after  they  have  admired  the 
elevation  the  women  retire  into  the 
background  again  and  everything 
goes  merrily  forward  among  the  men. 
There  are  contracts  and  sub-contracts 
and  bondsmen  and  material  and  me- 
chanics' liens  —  and  the  new  structure 
rises  proudly  in  the  air,  while  the 
building  committee  run  hither  and 
thither  and  rub  their  hands  in  glee. 

36 


About  the  time  the  building  is  en-  Social 
closed  something  seems  to  dampen  Mei 
their  ardor.  Perhaps  it  is  the  plaster, 
or  it  may  be  the  lack  of  plaster.  I  am 
not  very  certain  as  to  the  details,  but 
after  a  while  they  call  a  congrega- 
tional meeting.  The  pastor  announces 
it  for  Thursday  night  and  he  hopes 
for  a  large  attendance,  as  matters  of 
grave  importance  to  the  congregation 
and  the  cause  of  religion  at  large  are 
to  be  considered. 

Of  course  everybody  goes.  The 
minister  comes  in  rather  late,  looking 
pale  and  tired,  and  sits  with  his  elbow 
on  his  knee  and  his  head  on  his  hand, 
two  or  three  fingers  gleaming  amid 
his  dark  locks  very  effectively.  The 
building  committee  whisper  solemnly 
together  in  the  corner,  with  heavy 
lines  on  their  brows.  And  presently 
the  chairman  reads  his  report,  which 
ends :  "We  are  therefore  fifteen  thou- 
sand dollars  in  debt,  and  this  amount 
must  be  raised  before  we  can  worship 
in  this  sacred  structure  with  con- 
sciences void  of  offense."  He  sits 

37 


Social  down  with  a  slight  cough  of  embar- 
rassment, and  the  women  fall  back  in 
their  seats  with  a  concerted  gasp. 

There  is  a  solemn  stillness,  broken 
only  by  a  deep  sigh  from  the  minister. 
Then  a  slender  woman  in  the  front 
row  rises  and  says,  with  a  tremor  of 
decision  in  her  voice,  "My  friends,  this 
debt  must  be  paid;  this  money  must 
be  raised."  At  her  last  word  every 
feminine  spine  in  the  room  stiffens, 
and  every  woman  raises  her  chin  and 
sniffs  the  battle  from  afar. 

The  men  glance  slyly  at  each  other 
from  under  their  drawn  brows,  and 
with  difficulty  refrain  from  chuckling 
outright.  The  minister  raises  his 
head  and  beams  with  delight  and  ap- 
proval upon  the  sisters.  The  chair- 
man of  the  building  committee  springs 
to  his  feet  and  exclaims,  "God  bless 
the  ladies  —  it  will  be  done!" 

And  it  is  done.  Men,  poor  crea- 
tures, sometimes  know  how  to  earn 
money,  but  it  takes  a  woman  to  raise 
money.  If  you  had  told  those  women 
they  must  earn  fifteen  thousand  dol- 

38 


lars,  with  interest  at  six  per  cent,  in  Social 
as  many  years,  nervous  prostration  Mendlcan1 
would  have  become  epidemic  in  that 
congregation.  If  you  had  told  any 
one  of  them  that  within  a  year  she 
would  be  selling  popcorn-crisp  from  a 
tissue-paper  booth  on  Broadway  for 
a  living,  she  would  have  fallen  in  a 
swoon  at  your  feet.  If  you  had  told 
her  that  before  six  months  had  passed 
she  would  be  a  decorator,  standing  all 
day  on  a  stepladder  with  her  head 
tipped  back  at  an  angle  of  forty-five 
degrees,  she  would  have  shrieked  with 
dismay.  If  you  had  told  her  that  ere 
long  she  would  be  conducting  a  lot- 
tery and  evading  the  police,  she  would 
have  laughed  you  to  scorn.  If  you 
had  told  her  that  before  Christmas  she 
would  be  begging  in  the  streets  for 
herself  and  her  children  she  would 
have  committed  suicide. 

And  yet,  to  pay  church  debts,  wo- 
men have  done  all  these  things  and 
more.  Children  have  been  organized 
in  bands  and  sent  from  house  to  house 
to  sell  tickets  for  something  utterly 

39 


Social  beyond  their  comprehension.  Young 
people  have  been  encouraged  to  assist 
in  nameless  devices  for  extorting 
money  from  an  unwilling  public.  And 
in  the  face  of  this  there  are  people  who 
insist  that  the  church  is  a  conservator 
of  morals,  and  who  wonder  why  beg- 
gary is  on  the  increase  among  us  and 
pauperism  rapidly  becoming  respect- 
able. 

It  is  one  thing  to  beg  for  those  who 
are  or  who  think  they  are  or  whom 
we  think  are  in  want.  But  when  re- 
ligion goes  a-begging,  and  begging 
for  luxuries  —  for  steeples  and  velvet 
cushions  and  silver  communion-ser- 
vices and  axminster  carpets  and 
carved  pulpit-chairs  and  stained-glass 
windows  —  then  either  beggary  has 
become  respectable  or  the  church  has 
lost  its  respectability. 

A  plain  statement  of  the  needs  of 
any  cause  that  seems  to  us  worthy, 
placed  before  the  public  or  before  in- 
dividuals who  may  not  have  heard  of 
it,  is  entirely  different  from  that  per- 
sonal appeal  and  importunity  which 

40 


takes  the  matter  out  of  the  realm  of  Social 
conscience  and  judgment  and  makes 
the  gift  an  unwilling  compromise  with 
our  lower  instead  of  our  better  selves. 
That  is  the  charity  of  which  Emerson 
wrote,  "Though  I  confess  with  shame 
I  sometimes  succumb  and  give  the 
dollar,  it  is  a  wicked  dollar,  which  by 
and  by  I  shall  have  the  manhood  to 
withhold." 

Another  class  of  beggars  are  those 
that  beg  for  influence  they  could  never 
acquire  or  for  work  they  have  not  the 
skill  to  do.  I  was  called  from  the  writ- 
ing of  this  paper  by  a  young  woman 
who  said  she  desired  my  assistance  in 
getting  work.  She  brought  a  card  of 
introduction  from  a  friend  in  another 
city  who  pronounced  her  reliable  and 
of  good  family,  saying  that  her  father 
had  met  with  reverses  and  it  was  ne- 
cessary for  her  to  find  employment. 
The  young  woman  was  twenty-two 
years  of  age.  Her  hat  was  almost  as 
large  as  a  hearse  and  similarly  dec- 
orated :  six  tall  plumes  on  the  outside 
and  floral  decorations  below.  She  said 

41 


Social  she  wanted  employment,  but  I  soon 
discovered  that  what  she  really  want- 
ed was  a  salary.  She  expressed  some 
vague  fear  that  she  might  be  incon- 
venienced in  obtaining  a  situation  by 
the  fact  that  she  didn't  know  how  to 
do  anything  at  all,  but  altogether  she 
was  disposed  to  think  this  of  small  im- 
portance and  cheerfully  asserted  her 
willingness  to  take  any  kind  of  place 
"except  of  course  to  do  housework  in 
a  family" — she  would  not  like  to  do 
that.  When  I  hinted  that  this  was  the 
only  kind  of  work  for  which  there  is  a 
permanent  demand  she  said  yes,  she 
supposed  it  was.  After  a  little  urging 
she  confessed  a  willingness  to  be  com- 
panion to  a  lady.  I  told  her  it  was  not 
often  a  woman  desired  a  companion 
who  knew  absolutely  nothing — that 
was  a  peculiarity  of  men.  But  per- 
haps some  invalid  —  oh,  she  couldn't 
take  care  of  an  invalid;  she  never  had 
any  knack  about  sickness.  And  so 
forth.  Any  woman  can  reproduce  the 
conversation  from  memory.  The  girl 
had  absolutely  nothing  to  offer  but 

42 


what  she  called  a  willingness  to  work   Social 

P       .     .,  ,-  .  ..       Mendicants 

—  a  state  of  mind  that  numerous  phil- 
anthropists have  decided  is  all  that 
can  be  expected  of  more  than  half  of 
our  population  and  which  has  a  right 
to  have  work  provided  for  it.  In  other 
words  the  young  woman  was  a  beg- 
gar, save  that  she  begged  for  an  op- 
portunity to  receive  in  exchange  for 
her  ignorance  instead  of  honestly  ask- 
ing alms. 

We  have  many  varieties  of  such 
mendicants  among  us,  whom  I  shall 
call,  for  purposes  of  classification,  the 
Ignorers  of  the  Demand. 

When  an  ordinary  level-headed 
mortal  decides  upon  an  occupation  he 
selects  something  that  he  thinks  he 
can  do  and  that  he  thinks  people  want 
done.  This  would  seem  a  simple 
enough  proposition  to  those  untainted 
with  genius  or  even  talent.  But  the 
particular  type  of  beggar  last  men- 
tioned, and  for  brevity  I  shall  call  him 
the  Ignorer,  directs  his  entire  atten- 
tion to  deciding  what  he  would  like 
to  do. 

43 


Social         Two  of  these  called  upon  me  a  few 

Mendicants 


women.  One  of  them  was  an  elocu- 
tionist. Now  some  people  are  born 
elocutionists,  some  become  elocution- 
ists, but  nearly  everybody  has  elocu- 
tion thrust  upon  him.  I  never  heard 
of  any  demand  for  an  elocutionist;  I 
never  knew  anyone  to  advertise  for  an 
elocutionist;  I  never  saw  an  item  in 
the  first  newspaper  of  a  boom  town 
read:  "What  we  need  in  our  rapidly 
growing  city  is  a  good,  live,  all-round 
reader  and  reciter."  Nevertheless, 
this  young  woman  had  studied  elocu- 
tion. She  gesticulated  in  curves;  her 
voice  rose  and  fell  in  curves,  and  it 
was  a  very  girlish  voice,  fresh  and 
sweet.  She  desired  me  to  act  as  pa- 
troness of  a  reading  and  recital  to  be 
given  in  a  hotel  parlor.  Her  friend 
was  a  musician.  Now  I  never  patron- 
ize elocution,  and  so  I  said,  modestly 
I  hope,  that  my  name  was  of  no  im- 
portance but,  having  borne  it  more 
years  than  I  cared  to  mention,  I  pre- 
ferred not  to  use  it  without  knowl- 

44 


edge,  and  as  I  had  never  had  the  pleas-  Social 
ure  of  hearing  her  friend  play,  I  could  Mei 
hardly  advise  other  people  to  hear  her. 
To  be  truthful,  I  began  to  say  "hear- 
ing her  read,"  but  suddenly  there 
darted  through  my  mind  the  fear  that 
she  might  then  and  there  drop  upon 
one  knee  and  in  frenzied  tones  adjure 
me  that  Curfew  Must  Not  Ring  To- 
night. As  I  have  never  wished  to  ring 
the  curfew,  nor  at  any  time  used  my 
influence  to  have  it  rung,  nor  ever 
known  anyone  who  desired  to  ring  it, 
and  think,  indeed,  the  general  feeling 
is  decidedly  with  the  negative,  I  have 
never  been  able  to  account  for  the 
agonized  pleading  of  so  many  young 
women  against  it.  Naturally  one  ob- 
jects to  being  nagged  about  a  thing  he 
has  no  intention  of  doing,  and  I  have 
therefore  become  sensitive  about  the 
curfew  and  decidedly  averse  to  the 
subject. 

So,  although  I  do  not  shine  as  a 
musical  critic,  I  felt  safer  in  the  hands 
of  the  musician,  more  specially  as  she 
was  a  violinist  and  was  without  her 

45 


Social  violin.  But  the  young  woman  trium- 
phantly produced  their  list  of  patron- 
esses and  assured  me  that  "all  the  best 
and  wealthiest  ladies  of  Pasadena 
were  interested,"  a  statement  in  which 
they  were  undoubtedly  borne  out  by 
their  list.  Indeed,  I  felt  that  a 
full  attendance  of  patronesses  would 
crowd  the  hotel  parlors  to  suffocation 
and  bar  out  an  eager  public;  and,  with 
such  tact  as  I  could  command,  I  again 
declined  to  allow  my  name  to  be  used. 
Whereupon  the  elocutionist  arose  and 
in  her  grandest  manner  informed  me 
that  "some  people  were  obliged  to 
earn  their  living  by  their  talents"  and 
she  considered  it  very  selfish  for  those 
who  were  not,  to  stand  in  their  way. 

I  wondered  vaguely,  after  they 
were  gone,  if  the  poor  things  really 
thought  they  were  earning  their  liv- 
ing—  begging  for  patronage,  for  in- 
fluence, for  help  at  every  turn,  supply- 
ing an  unf elt  want  and  taking  the  time 
of  numbers  of  busy  women  to  ask 
of  them  a  favor  —  often  unwillingly 
granted.  By  what  perversion  of  the 

46 


mind  did  it  ever  come  to  be  considered    Social 
more  honorable  than  household  ser- 
vice? 

But  the  Ignorers  are  not  all  wo- 
men. A  young  man  called  at  my 
house  during  the  early  summer.  I 
knew  him  as  the  son  of  a  minister:  a 
man  who  had  insisted  upon  studying 
theology  against  the  advice  of  his 
friends,  possessing  no  qualifications 
for  his  chosen  profession  and  a  conse- 
quent failure  therein.  The  boy  was 
thus  of  the  second  generation  of  Ig- 
norers. He  wished  to  sell  me  a  book. 
He  said  very  little  about  the  book,  it 
is  true,  but  urged  that  he  was  trying 
to  earn  a  little  money  during  vaca- 
tion to  help  him  along  with  his  edu- 
cation, and  he  thought  I  would  be 
willing  to  assist  him.  After  this  plea 
he  produced  the  volume.  I  examined 
it  and  told  him  it  was  a  book  I  would 
not  buy  under  any  circumstances.  He 
intimated  that  my  name  would  be  of 
use  to  him  in  the  neighborhood,  etc. 
The  youth,  the  ignorance,  the  pathos 
of  the  boy  ought  to  have  protected 

47 


Social  him  from  a  lecture,  but  it  did  not.  I 
told  him  precisely  what  I  thought  of 
the  book:  a  hotch-potch  of  ill-ar- 
ranged matter,  made  to  sell  to  ignor- 
ant people.  I  drew  his  attention  to 
the  fact  that  he  had  begun  by  reciting 
his  own  needs  and  endeavoring  to  en- 
list my  sympathy.  And  just  as  I  was 
warming  to  the  subject  and  showing 
him  exactly  how  he  could  earn  an  hon- 
est living  and  save  himself  the  mor- 
tification of  begging,  he  evidenced  a 
desire  to  depart.  Whether  it  was 
anxiety  to  adopt  my  counsel  or  to  es- 
cape it  I  am  unable  to  say,  but  as  I  saw 
him  a  few  minutes  later  entering  a 
neighbor's  house  I  fear  it  was  the 
latter. 

Then  there  are  the  artists,  the  men 
and  women  who  decide  to  paint  pic- 
tures because  they  like  it  better  than 
anything  else,  and  then  berate  the  rest 
of  us  because  we  are  not  willing  to 
pay  them  two  hundred  dollars  for  an 
afternoon's  work !  Now  I  have  noth- 
ing whatever  to  say  against  two  hun- 
dred or  two  thousand  dollars  for  an 

48 


afternoon's  work  if  talent  has  made  Social 
the  artist's  time  so  valuable  that  he  Mendicants 
can  get  it.  If  a  man  thinks  his  pic- 
tures worth  five  hundred  dollars 
apiece  he  has  the  right  to  hold  them 
at  that  price  until  somebody  else 
thinks  so.  But  he  must  not  talk  su- 
perciliously of  the  failure  of  western 
people  to  appreciate  art.  The  fact  is 
that  very  few  people  anywhere  know 
much  about  the  value  of  pictures.  Nor 
does  it  argue  a  lack  of  taste.  In  liter- 
ature one  may  be  finely  appreciative 
without  having  the  faintest  idea  con- 
cerning the  market  value  of  what  he  is 
reading;  and  it  is  much  the  same  with 
pictures. 

When  a  Miss  or  Mrs.  or  Mr.  in  a 
studio  is  spoken  of  among  your  friends 
as  "really  very  hard  up"  and  you  are 
adjured  to  go  and  buy  something  from 
her  or  him,  and  you  go  modestly  with 
your  last  five-dollar  gold-piece  in  your 
purse  and  stand  politely  looking 
about,  with  your  hands  clasped  in 
such  a  way  as  to  hide  the  worn  places 
in  your  gloves,  wondering  if  you  can 

49 


Social   get  on  this  winter  with  your  old  jacket 
Mendicants   freshene(i  up  wjth  new  passementerie, 

feeling  a  trifle  thankful  that  your 
gown  is  long  in  front  and  hides  the 
shabbiness  of  your  best  shoes  —  does 
it  ever  strike  you  as  very,  well,  re- 
markable that  the  little  sketch,  six  by 
eight  inches,  of  bare  tree-trunks 
against  a  red  sky,  with  two  blue 
boulders  and  a  little  graduated  green 
spread  in  a  slightly  malarial  manner 
toward  the  lower  left-hand  corner, 
should  be  worth  twenty-five  dollars? 
I  am  willing  to  confess  that  I  have  in- 
dulged in  these  inartistic  reflections 
on  numerous  occasions,  and  at  times 
I  have  seen  others  who  seemed  to  me 
to  be  struggling  with  questions  of 
economics  when  they  should  have 
been  giving  their  souls  exclusively  to 
art. 

It  is  impossible  to  remember  all 
the  mendicants  who  come  to  one's 
door  masquerading  in  the  garb  of  in- 
dustry. And  even  if  it  were  possible 
time  would  fail  me  to  tell  of  the  solici- 
tors for  subscribers  to  the  Ladies' 

50 


Home  Drivel  who  intend  to  study  Social 
music  on  the  proceeds;  of  the  young  Mei 
newspaper  reporters  who  beg  you  for 
items  concerning  the  private  lives  of 
yourselves  and  others  which  you  con- 
sider out  of  place  in  public  print,  be- 
cause, as  they  plead,  "it  is  their  bread 
and  butter";  of  the  agents  desiring  a 
written  order  for  the  same  brand  of 
baking-powder  you  are  using,  that 
they  may  obtain  a  commission  for  "in- 
troducing" it;  of  the  old  man  selling 
pointless  needles  with  a  wooden  leg 
(I  speak  advisedly);  and  all  the 
countless  horde  of  people  who  deceive 
themselves  or  try  to  deceive  them- 
selves, and  us,  into  thinking  that  they 
are  earning  a  living.  Certainly  it  is 
better  than  tying  up  one's  foot  in  a 
pillow  and  standing  beside  the  City 
Hall  steps  begging  people  to  buy  col- 
lar-buttons; but  I  for  one  never  feel 
virtuous  after  purchasing  something 
I  do  not  want  and  can  ill  afford,  and 
thus  keeping  up  a  false  demand. 

Did  I  say  never?    Let  me  make  an 
exception  of  the  old  woman  who  sold 

51 


Social   pencils  from  house  to  house,  and  when 


Mendicants  jf 


of  her  age  to  walk  so  much,  and  inter- 
rogated concerning  her  children,  re- 
plied: "Yes,  I  have  a  daughter  I  could 
live  with,  but  she  has  two  children 
growing  up  and  I'd  rather  sell  pencils 
than  take  their  sass!" 

If  the  real  industries  were  crowd- 
ed; if  we  were  overrun  with  good 
house-servants  and  skilful  men  to  do 
odd  jobs  ;  if  hired  men  were  like  Jonas 
in  the  Rollo  books;  if,  in  short,  every- 
thing we  really  want  done  were  well 
and  abundantly  done,  one  might  ex- 
cuse himself  for  conniving  at  beggary 
and  helping  to  keep  it  within  the  pale 
of  respectability.  But  few  of  the 
things  that  the  comfort  of  life  depends 
most  upon  are  really  well  done.  And 
in  view  of  this  fact,  it  might  be  better 
for  us  to  reduce  the  work  of  life  as 
rapidly  as  possible  to  its  legitimate 
place,  and  to  this  end  not  only  call  a 
spade  a  spade  but  oblige  a  large  num- 
ber of  those  otherwise  occupied  at 
present  to  learn  its  use. 

52 


SOME  IMMORTAL  FALLACIES 

If  any  good  results  to  a  man  from 
believing  a  lie,  it  certainly  comes  from 
the  honesty  of  his  belief.  As  soon  as 
suspicion  of  untruth  obtains  a  hold  in 
his  mind,  the  value  of  the  lie  departs. 
When  a  man  says,  "I  had  rather  be- 
lieve so  and  so/'  he  is  reposing  on  an 
air-cushion  with  the  stopper  left  out; 
sooner  or  later  his  comfort  in  it  will 
vanish.  In  view  of  this  it  is  question- 
able whether  one  is  justified  in  attack- 
ing old  and  apparently  harmless  be- 
liefs. Most  of  us  have  acquired  an 
accumulation  of  views  which  we  have 
accepted  either  in  good  nature  or  in 
self-defense,  just  as  a  man  accepts  the 
theory  that  his  wife  makes  good 
bread,  because  nothing  would  be 
gained  by  denying  it.  He  means  that 
the  bread  is  good  for  him. 

However,  it  seems  fitting  that  we 
should  go  over  some  of  these  time- 

53 


Some  worn  ideas  and  see  if  any  of  them  are 
Fallacies  threadbare  enough  to  give  to  the  poor. 
I  say  give  to  the  poor  because  there  is 
no  danger  of  their  being  discarded  by 
everybody.  There  are  many  new  ways 
of  looking  at  things,  but  there  is  no 
dearth  of  those  who  prefer  to  look  at 
everything  in  the  old  way,  and  no  one 
need  be  afraid  to  throw  aside  an  opin- 
ion which  he  once  found  comfortable, 
but  which  now  appears  to  him  rather 
shabby  and  old-fashioned,  for  fear  the 
world  may  lose  the  comfort  it  once 
gave  him.  There  are  far  more  people 
standing  around  waiting  for  conven- 
tional commonplaces  than  there  are 
people  discarding  them.  Unless  you 
are  made  on  a  mental  plan  quite 
unique,  your  old  clothes  will  fit  some- 
body and  perhaps  furnish  him  a  Sun- 
day suit. 

Nor  is  there  any  need  of  shivering 
at  the  thought  of  changing  one's 
views.  Now  and  then  we  hear  people 
say,  "Oh,  I  should  be  perfectly  miser- 
able if  I  did  not  believe"  this  or  that. 
But  this  is  entirely  illogical.  If  I 

54 


could  take  away  your  belief  (which  I  Some 
cannot)  before  you  had  ceased  to  be- 
lieve  it,  your  apprehension  might  be 
well  founded.  Certain  snakes,  I  have 
understood,  shed  their  skins  annually 
(or  rather,  I  have  been  told;  I  never 
understood  it).  Now  this  is  a  very 
different  matter  from  being  skinned 
alive.  We  can  imagine  the  ripple  of 
horror  which  must  pass  through  the 
half-grown  serpent  when  he  learns 
from  his  elders  that  he  will  sometime 
lose  his  epidermis;  when  the  time 
comes  he  is,  no  doubt,  glad  to  be  rid  of 
it.  But  in  shedding  our  cherished  old 
theories  we  have  consolations  that  are 
denied  the  beasts  that  perish.  We 
know  that  they  will  be  seized  by  the 
man  behind  us  as  the  very  latest  thing 
out,  and  that  he  will  extract  from 
them  all  the  warmth  and  comfort  that 
they  once  gave  us. 

One  may  therefore  say  of  opinions, 
that  they  are  not  lost  but  gone  behind. 
No  one  need  be  afraid,  then,  as  he 
mounts  to  the  heaven  of  truth  on  the 
wings  of  progress,  to  drop  his  mantle 

55 


Some   as  he   rises.     There   will   always   be 
Fallacies    some   Elisha   standing   about,    ready 
to    assume    it    and    become    famous 
thereby. 

I  am  prompted  to  these  consola- 
tory remarks  by  the  fear  that  before 
I  have  finished  I  may  attack  some  be- 
lief dear  to  the  heart  of  some  reader, 
and  I  wish  it  distinctly  understood 
that  I  do  not  intend  to  destroy  those 
beliefs.  Most  of  them,  indeed,  are 
practically  indestructible.  Some  of 
them  have  become  imbedded  in  our 
language  and  their  extirpation  would 
call  for  radical  changes  in  our  vocabu- 
lary. 

Take  for  instance  "old-maidish,"  a 
word  founded  on  the  universal  belief 
that  persons  who,  in  the  providence 
of  God  and  the  improvidence  of  mai^ 
have  reached  a  certain  or  an  uncertain 
age  without  finding  anyone  whom 
they  enjoy  differing  with,  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  all  others,  are  prim,  precise, 
proper,  and  mentally  and  morally  rec- 
tilinear. Now  in  examining  the  basis 
of  this  belief  we  are  forced  to  acknowl- 

56 


edge  that  the  facts  are  against  it.  Some 
Nearly  all,  if  not  quite  all,  of  the  "old- 
maidish"  people  of  our  acquaintance 
are  married,  while  the  maiden  ladies 
and  the  bachelors,  take  them  all  in  all, 
are  an  easy-going,  readily  adaptable, 
fit-in-any-place  sort  of  people,  who 
might  perhaps  have  become  set  in 
their  ways  if  they  had  ever  been  per- 
mitted to  have  any,  but  who  have  been 
so  hustled  about  by  their  married  kin 
that  they  have  sometimes  been  forced 
into  matrimony  in  the  hope  of  having 
their  own  way  at  last :  a  hope  which 
too  often  fails  of  realization  by  reason 
of  a  similar  motive  on  the  part  of  the 
other  high  contracting  party. 

If  you  will  call  to  mind  the  two  or 
three  most  exact,  fastidious  and  par- 
ticular men  and  women  you  have  ever 
known,  you  will  find  they  were  all 
married.  This  is  of  course  a  rude 
shock  to  the  ancient  and  honorable 
theory,  but  the  seeker  after  abstract 
truth  must  be  prepared  for  shocks  and 
throw  all  his  preconceptions  to  the 
winds. 

57 


Some  Less  than  a  century  ago  a  girl  of 
sixteen  was  commonly  considered  and 
referred  to  as  a  woman,  and  all  the 
childishness  and  crudity  that  such  im- 
maturity involved  was  assumed  to  be 
characteristic  of  her  sex.  These  char- 
acteristics attached  themselves  not 
only  to  the  masculine  but  also  the  fem- 
inine idea  of  woman.  They  have  be- 
come a  part  of  common  speech,  inso- 
much that  "effeminate"  has  become 
a  term  of  reproach,  and  women  have 
staggered  along  under  the  belief  that 
all  the  things  the  world  has  said  of 
them  are  the  result  of  careful  obser- 
vation and  must  be  true.  They,  or 
many  of  them,  believe  that  they  are 
malicious,  envious  and  spiteful  be- 
cause they  have  heard  from  infancy  of 
feminine  spite,  feminine  jealousy  and 
the  like.  When  a  man  is  malicious  it 
is  plain  malice,  without  sex.  No  one 
ever  heard  of  petty  masculine  spite. 
We  respect  the  individuality  even  of  a 
mean  man,  and  allow  that  he  is  mean 
because  he  chooses  to  be.  But  a  wo- 
man is  coerced  by  her  sex;  her  sins 

58 


are  all  feminine,  and  are  saddled  upon   Some 
the  rest  of  us  until,  really,  the  bur- 
den  is  becoming  greater  than  we  can 
bear. 

What  would  become  of  the  self- 
respect  of  the  ordinary  man  if,  in  addi- 
tion to  his  own  shortcomings,  he  were 
nagged  by  having  all  the  sins  of  the 
decalogue  ascribed  to  him  by  virtue  of 
his  masculinity?  How  would  it  strike 
a  modest  man  to  hear  Mr.  Bombast 
accused  of  "masculine  vanity,"  or  an 
honest  man  to  hear  of  Mr.  Steele  ar- 
rested for  "masculine  dishonesty,"  or 
a  tender-hearted  man  to  read  of  a 
lynching  as  a  display  of  "masculine 
cruelty"?  Would  they  not  one  and 
all  weep  and  howl  for  the  miseries 
thus  heaped  upon  them?  And  is  it 
not  possible  that  after  two  or  three 
hundred  years  of  hearing  these  things, 
they  might  reason  somewhat  in  this 
fashion:  "Vanity,  forging  and  lynch- 
ing are  characteristic  of  man;  I  am  a 
man;  therefore  I  am  vain,  dishonest 
and  bloodthirsty"  ?  This  will,  I  think, 
account  quite  logically  for  the  views 

59 


Some   that  women  often  express  concerning 

Immortal  •  ,     *•       j  -ntr 

Fallacies   capitalized  Woman. 

Take  the  matter  of  jealousy  as  to 
personal  attractions,  and  unwilling- 
ness to  acknowledge  beauty  in  other 
women,  which  is  one  of  the  most  gen- 
erally accepted  feminine  weaknesses. 
Now  all  women  know  that  women  are 
peculiarly  susceptible  to  beauty  in 
other  women,  that  they  talk  about  it 
with  unbounded  enthusiasm,  and  take 
unlimited  satisfaction  in  the  contem- 
plation of  a  charming  face.  Indeed 
any  beautiful  woman  will  tell  you,  and 
even  moderately  plain  women  will  tell 
you,  that  their  personal  attractions 
have  always  been  more  ardently  ap- 
preciated by  women  than  by  men.  A 
beautiful  girl,  possessed  of  the  ordin- 
ary graces  of  mind,  has  the  same  ad- 
vantage in  making  her  way  among 
strangers  of  her  own  sex  that  she  has 
among  men. 

And  this  brings  us  face  to  face 
with  another  fallacy  unquestioningly 
accepted  by  most  of  us,  namely,  that 
personal  beauty  is  an  extremely  po- 

60 


tent  factor  in  a  woman's  success.  That  Some 
it  is  an  important  factor  in  her  life 
can  hardly  be  questioned,  but  whether 
its  influence  is  toward  her  success  is  a 
question  which  the  observation  of 
each  of  us,  honestly  given,  will,  I 
think,  tend  to  answer  in  the  negative. 
Of  course  the  dangers  of  failure  and 
unhappiness  attending  the  possession 
of  great  beauty  are  like  the  cares  and 
troubles  of  great  wealth  —  most  of  us 
would  risk  being  crushed  by  them. 
And  in  spite  of  the  fate  of  the  beauties 
we  have  known  it  is  highly  probable 
that  parents  will  go  on  hoping  that 
their  sons  may  grow  rich  and  their 
daughters  beautiful,  to  the  end  of  the 
chapter. 

There  is  something  peculiarly  in- 
teresting to  the  childless  observer  in 
this  matter  of  plans  and  hopes  which 
parents  entertain  for  their  offspring. 
During  a  long  and  useless  life  I  have 
been  the  recipient  of  many  confi- 
dences as  to  the  well-defined  talents 
and  pronounced  tastes  of  various 
Dickies  and  Dorothies,  and  have  never 

61 


Some    I  trust  been  found  wanting  in  a  spirit 

Immortal        r  •  Jt  « 

Fallacies  o±  acquiescence  in  the  paternal  cer- 
tainty that  these  early  indications 
pointed  to  a  brilliant  career  in  the  line 
thus  suggested.  True,  I  have  of  late 
years  entertained  myself  at  times  by 
recalling  some  of  these  promises  of 
early  youth  and  comparing  them  with 
the  actual  occupations  of  their  possess- 
ors. The  result  has  shaken  me  a  lit- 
tle in  the  matter  of  ready  sympathy 
with  the  parent  of  today,  who  assures 
me  that  his  boy's  tastes  are  all  scien- 
tific because  he  meddles  with  the  bat- 
tery in  the  cellar;  but  I  have  not  ob- 
served as  yet  any  diminution  of  en- 
thusiasm on  the  part  of  mothers  and 
fathers  by  reason  of  my  dampened 
ardor.  I  remember  two  boys,  given  to 
pillage  and  devastation,  whose  happi- 
ness seemed  to  hinge  upon  the  posses- 
sion of  matches,  and  who  at  various 
times  placed  their  respective  families 
in  imminent  danger  of  destruction  by 
fire  —  a  tendency  that  pointed  plainly 
to  a  brilliant  military  career  of  arson, 
plunder  and  death.  One  of  them  is  an 

62 


insurance  agent  and  the  other  a  Pres-   Some 

«  i    ,       ,t  Immortal 

bytenan  preacher,  opposed  to  the  re-   Fallacies 
vision  of  the  creed. 

I  also  knew  several  little  girls 
whose  talent  for  music  was  so  absorb- 
ing that  their  parents  doubted  the  ad- 
visability of  teaching  them  the  multi- 
plication table,  lest  it  should  delay  the 
time  when  they  would  dazzle  a  wait- 
ing public  by  their  artistic  skill.  I 
met  one  of  them  the  other  day,  and, 
being  an  old-fashioned  person,  asked 
her  if  she  still  "played."  She  looked 
at  me  blankly  for  a  moment  and  said, 
"No,  I  work.  The  mother  of  four 
children  does  not  play."  Another  said 
she  was  glad  she  studied  music  be- 
cause it  made  her  hands  flexible  for 
the  typewriter;  and  a  third  is  teach- 
ing plane  trigonometry  in  a  high 
school.  I  have  known  a  great  many 
boys  whose  interest  in  machinery  was 
so  much  greater  than  their  interest  in 
books  that  they  would  forget  to  go  to 
school  if  there  was  a  fire-engine  with- 
in three  blocks  of  the  school-house  — 
the  same  boys  that  manifested  their 

63 


Some  fine  instinct  for  mechanics  earlier  in 
life  by  disemboweling  all  their  me- 
chanical toys  to  see  how  they  were 
made,  and  then  howled  dismally  be- 
cause they  would  not  go. 

So  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  fol- 
low the  lives  of  these  gifted  youths,  I 
have  found  them  walking  in  paths 
professional  or  in  the  byways  of  dry- 
goods  and  general  merchandise.  Only 
two  of  them,  so  far  as  I  know,  have 
devoted  their  time  to  machinery;  one 
of  these  writes  poetry  for  the  daily 
papers  and  the  other  was  a  successful 
candidate  for  a  city  office  at  the  last 
election.  Truly  "a  boy's  will  is  the 
wind's  will,  and  the  thoughts  of  youth 
are  long,  long  thoughts."  I  wonder 
how  many  of  us,  looking  back  to  the 
tastes  of  childhood,  can  trace  in  them 
any  indication  of  the  preferences  of 
maturity.  Personally,  nothing  stands 
out  in  my  own  recollection  more  viv- 
idly than  my  eagerness  for  stories  of 
the  sea.  I  hung  over  them  with  dot- 
ing fondness,  which  varied  in  direct 
proportion  to  the  thrillingness  of 

64 


the  shipwreck.    This  particular  form   Some 

.  i  -  Immortal 

of  disaster  and  hair-breadth  escape  Fallacies 
seemed  to  curdle  my  blood  to  exactly 
the  proper  consistency  for  acute  hap- 
piness. I  have  never  been  able  to  tell 
why  I  preferred  it  to  fire,  earthquake 
or  Indians,  nor  have  I  ever  understood 
why  I  cared  about  such  tales  at  all. 
No  doubt  my  parents  spent  anxious 
hours  in  the  fear  that  I  might  run 
away  to  sea,  but  as  time  went  on  and 
I  displayed  a  comfortable  preference 
for  my  own  hearthstone,  their  anxiety 
was  somewhat  allayed.  I  have  won- 
dered at  times  however  what  might 
have  been  the  difference  in  the  result 
of  the  late  war  with  Spain  if  this  pro- 
nounced taste  on  my  part  had  con- 
strained them  to  educate  me  for  the 
navy. 

And  this  leads  me  to  the  time- 
worn  theory  that  a  woman  cannot 
throw  straight.  Nothing  prevents  me 
from  attacking  this  ancient  preju- 
dice but  the  certainty  that  all  my  ef- 
forts would  fall  wide  of  the  mark.  I 
had  also  intended  to  make  a  point  con- 

65 


Some    earning  woman's  ability  to  sharpen  a 
Pencil,  but  I  desist. 

There  is  no  fallacy  more  insidious 
than  the  idea  that  we  can  make  people 
like  us  by  doing  good.  There  is  some- 
thing very  pathetic  in  the  strenuous 
efforts  of  worthy  souls  to  get  trfem- 
selves  loved  by  reason  of  virtuous  and 
commendable  acts.  Now  yeast  is  very 
active,  but  I  never  knew  anyone  to  be 
really  fond  of  yeast.  Of  course  we  all 
respect  it  and  acknowledge  its  useful- 
ness, but  very  few  of  us  could  live  up 
to  a  diet  of  yeast.  Amiel  says  (and 
for  wisdom  how  often  we  go  to  the 
man  who  seemed  to  do  nothing!) :  "In 
choosing  one's  friends  we  must  choose 
those  whose  qualities  are  inborn  and 
whose  virtues  are  virtues  of  tempera- 
ment." Very  discouraging  to  those  of 
us  who  have  been  striving  to  piece  out 
nature  by  grace.  But  some  crumb  of 
comfort  may  be  found  in  the  possi- 
bility that  if  we  continue  to  do  good 
and  eschew  evil  all  the  days  of  our  life, 
acquired  virtue  may  come  to  sit  so 
lightly  and  easily  upon  us  that  an  oc- 

66 


casional  fellow-sinner  may  think  it  Some 
our  very  own  and  love  us  in  spite  of 
the  real  curmudgeon  beneath.  At  any 
rate  the  experiment  is  worth  trying. 
And  yet  I  fear  that  the  melancholy 
truth  will  remain,  that  the  individual 
who  only  wishes  good  to  the  whole 
world  in  a  hearty,  whole-souled  way, 
without  lifting  a  finger  to  bring  it 
about,  will  always  have  more  friends 
than  the  one  who  determinedly  and 
systematically  sets  himself  to  get  up 
a  millennium  according  to  his  own 
plans  and  specifications. 

This  brings  us  quite  logically  to  an 
unfounded  opinion  current  among 
men  since  the  beginning  of  time, 
namely  that  women,  even  good  wo- 
men, like  wicked  men.  This  idea 
seems  to  have  originated  with  Adam, 
when  he  found  that  his  wife,  believ- 
ing Satan  to  be  a  man  of  the  world, 
thought  it  possible  that  he  might  be 
able  to  make  a  few  suggestions  to  her 
and  her  horticultural  husband.  Now 
I  have  observed  that  a  good  many 
men  like  wicked  men;  at  least  they 

67 


Some  stand  by  them  and  protect  them,  and 
Fallacies  carefully  hide  their  wrongdoing  from 
women,  in  a  way  that  argues  the 
greatest  friendliness  and  affection. 
All  the  men  that  I  know  are  good,  so 
of  course  I  can't  speak  very  positively 
on  this  subject;  but  I  am  quite  cer- 
tain that  if  other  women  seem  to  like 
bad  men  it  is  because  they  think  they 
are  good;  and  so  long  as  they  depend 
upon  men,  as  they  must,  for  their  in- 
formation I  am  disposed  to  think  they 
will  find  considerable  difficulty  in  sep- 
arating the  wheat  from  the  chaff. 

Very  few  good  people,  men  or  wo- 
men, really  like  evil,  but  it  is  true  that 
many  of  the  qualities  that  make  us 
likable,  developed  to  excess  make  us 
immoral.  It  is  doubtless  these  quali- 
ties that  attract :  the  social  grace,  the 
ready  speech,  the  considerateness,  the 
cordiality  that  make  a  young  man  too 
popular  for  his  own  good  and  a  ready 
prey  to  flattery.  People  do  not  like 
him  because  of  his  faults,  but  some  of 
his  faults  may  result  from  too  many 
people  liking  him.  Given  all  these 

68 


good  qualities,  however,  and  the  Some 
strength  to  resist  the  dangers  they  en- 
tail,  you  have  the  man  most  women 
find  socially  agreeable.  I  do  not  think 
he  differs  greatly  from  the  man  men 
find  socially  agreeable.  And  right  here 
I  should  like  to  ask  why  we  are  so  con- 
stantly assured  that  women  like 
"strong"  men,  "men  they  can  lean  up- 
on," men  of  force  and  character,  and 
why,  in  the  face  of  this,  the  ideal 
"ladies'  man"  is  represented  as  a  men- 
tal weakling. 

Another  fallacious  position,  which 
it  especially  becomes  most  of  us  to 
undermine,  is  the  popular  idea  that 
young  people  are  seeing  their  happiest 
days.  I  remember  once  being  greatly 
surprised  to  hear  a  venerable  man  say 
that  he  felt  sorry  for  young  people; 
they  seemed  to  him  so  crude  and  fla- 
vorless, like  very  green  apples.  I  am 
unable  to  say  just  how  the  idea  of 
youthful  happiness  has  gained  such 
ground,  for,  really,  youth  is  full  of  tur- 
moil and  mental  uncertainty  and  bit- 
ter disappointment  and  yearning  and 

69 


Some  helplessness.  Physical  vigor  is  un- 
Faiiacies  questionably  a  good  thing,  but  no  one 
really  wants  his  youth  again.  If  it 
should  come  to  him  unexpectedly  he 
would  call  it  softening  of  the  brain 
and  be  frightened  beyond  words. 
Middle  life  is  in  reality  the  serene 
and  comfortable  time,  when  one  has 
reached  the  top  and  sits  fanning  him- 
self, mentally  looking  over  the  land- 
scape of  life  before  starting  down  hill. 
It  is  the  climax,  the  moment  we  have 
been  striving  for,  the  arrival.  The  real 
question  is,  when  is  it?  Even  old  age 
is  better  than  youth.  It  is  a  great 
deal  easier  to  go  down  hill  than  up. 
I  am  particularly  anxious  to  have  this 
theory  firmly  established  in  the  minds 
of  the  young  and  I  trust  that  its  in- 
culcation will  be  made  compulsory  in 
the  public  schools.  I  have  noticed 
that,  up  to  a  certain  age,  children  are 
very  eager  to  be  grown,  and  I  think  if 
this  respect  for  maturity  could  be 
deepened  into  envy,  and  if  the  ordin- 
ary high-school  commencement  ad- 
dress could  assume  a  tone  of  pity,  tem- 

70 


pered  with  hope  that  the  pupils  might  Some 
live  through  their  present  lamentable 
condition  and  emerge  into  the  happi- 
ness and  dignity  of  middle-life,  a 
much-needed  reform  might  be  brought 
about  in  the  attitude  of  youth  toward 
old  age.  Indeed  I  am  not  at  all  cer- 
tain that  we  are  ourselves  not  to 
blame  for  the  much-complained-of  in- 
solence of  youth,  with  our  perpetual 
disrespect  to  our  own  estate  and  end- 
less laudation  of  theirs.  If  we  all 
want  to  be  young,  or  say  we  do,  natur- 
ally the  young  take  it  that  we  are  in 
a  bad  way,  and  those  who  call  for  too 
much  sympathy  are  likely  to  get  with 
it  a  good  deal  of  contempt. 

Another  serious  misconception, 
and  one  that  strikes  deeper  than  may 
at  first  appear,  is  the  belief  that  men 
do  not  care  for  beautiful  clothes.  This 
has  always  seemed  to  me  a  reflection 
on  the  artistic  taste  of  half  the  race, 
which  is  as  unkind  as  it  is  uncalled 
for.  Men  would  undoubtedly  like  to 
dress  in  rich  fabrics  and  bright  colors, 
notably  red,  if  their  occupations 

71 


Some  would  permit.  Indeed,  in  their  days 
Fallacies  °f  leisure  they  reveled  in  satins  and 
velvets  of  varied  hues,  and  nothing 
but  the  unrelenting  demands  of  daily 
toil  induced  them  to  forego  the  deli- 
cate ruffles  at  the  wrist  and  neck,  the 
jeweled  buckles  and  powdered  hair  of 
the  court.  Even  within  my  memory 
men  whose  profession  allowed  them 
the  dignity  of  a  study  at  home  —  min- 
isters, professors  and  the  like  —  at- 
tired themselves  in  dressing-gowns  of 
gorgeous  tints  and  graceful  outline; 
but  even  these,  alas,  are  numbered 
with  the  past.  The  flowered  waist- 
coat is  also  gone.  Nothing  is  left  of 
their  former  glory  but  the  cravat. 
There  is  something  to  me  quite  pa- 
thetic about  a  man's  necktie:  the  ef- 
fort to  crowd  his  whole  artistic  nature 
into  a  bit  of  silk  two  inches  wide,  se- 
lected in  two  minutes  from  two  thou- 
sand others,  is  certainly  touching. 
There  is  a  mute  appeal  about  it,  as  if 
it  would  say,  "I  am  all  he  has  left,  the 
one  useless  article  of  his  attire;  but  he 
clings  to  me  to  prove  that  he  would 

72 


like  to  look  pretty  if  he  were  not  too  Some 
busy."  It  is  like  the  pot  of  stunted 
geranium  in  the  window  of  the  poor 
(sometimes  it  is  very  much  like  it) 
expressing  the  "heart  hunger  for  art 
and  beauty  stifled  by  sordid  care."  I 
know  of  course  that  this  cannot  be 
helped,  that  men  are  crowded  and 
jostled  and  hurried  because  of  the  de- 
mands of  their  families.  I  have  always 
noticed  that  if  a  man's  family  is  taken 
away  from  him  he  goes  out  of  busi- 
ness, especially  if  he  is  making  money 
fast  and  getting  ahead  of  his  competi- 
tors. But  in  spite  of  these  facts  I  shall 
continue  to  shed  tears  over  the  necktie 
and  all  that  it  symbolizes. 

A  most  elusive  and  therefore  most 
dangerous  fallacy  is  one  peculiarly 
dear  to  the  feminine  heart,  namely  the 
belief  which  every  woman  cherishes 
that  she  has  the  true  spirit  of  social 
reform  because  she  stands  ready  to  do 
all  sorts  of  sensible  things  —  as  soon 
as  all  the  other  women  of  her  ac- 
quaintance are  ready  to  support  her  in 
so  doing.  In  other  words,  she  is  ready, 

73 


Some  indeed  eager,  to  be  unfashionable  as 
Fallacies  soon  as  it  shall  become  fashionable  to 
be  unfashionable.  She  wishes  women 
would  dress  sensibly  and  entertain 
simply  and  rid  their  lives  of  various 
soul-destroying  complexities,  and  she 
makes  no  secret  of  her  wish.  Indeed, 
she  tells  you  of  it  most  charmingly, 
while  she  holds  her  purse  in  one  hand 
and  catches  up  her  superfluous  dra- 
pery with  the  other.  She  thinks  the 
custom  of  leaving  a  pack  of  visiting- 
cards  at  one  residence  is  unnecessary 
and  foolish,  but  she  continues  to  leave 
them  just  the  same,  for  fear  that  some 
one  may  fancy  that  she  does  not  know 
all  the  useless  conventionalities  of  so- 
ciety. Perhaps  it  might  be  well  for 
her  to  have  a  card  engraved,  "I  am 
perfectly  acquainted  with  the  card 
system  and  disapprove  of  the  same. 
Mrs.  Platt  R.  E.  Form." 

There  is  a  fallacy  for  which  we  all 
feel  such  tenderness  that  I  find  it  hard 
to  lay  rude  hands  upon  it.  It  has  been 
the  theme  of  romance  since  romance 
was  born,  and  the  older  we  grow  the 

74 


dearer  it  becomes.  Is  it  necessary  to  Some 
say  that  I  refer  to  the  one-and-only- 
love  theory?  But  the  fear  that  our 
novelists  may  desert  it  through  my  in- 
fluence, and  start  upon  a  series  of 
emotional  complexities  involving  in 
the  reader  a  knowledge  of  differential 
calculus,  prompts  me  to  withdraw 
from  any  attack  which  I  might  other- 
wise have  meditated. 

There  is  no  greater  fallacy  current 
than  that  supply  is  governed  by  de- 
mand. Witness  the  enormous  demand 
for  the  kind  of  bread  your  mother 
used  to  make,  in  contrast  with  the 
very  small  supply;  witness  the  de- 
mand for  good  husbands,  for  obedient 
wives;  and  have  you  ever  noticed  in 
your  own  case  that  the  demand  for 
ready  money  in  any  way  influenced 
the  supply?  If  there  were  any  relation, 
from  my  own  experience  I  should  say 
they  vary  inversely. 

Then  there  is  that  battered  but 
still  recognizable  assertion  '  that  the 
senseless  extravagances  of  the  rich 
benefit  the  poor:  the  belief  that  the 

75 


Some  laboring-man  who  makes  sky-rockets 
Facades  at  one  dollar  a  day  is  as  much  bene- 
fited as  if  he  were  making  model  tene- 
ments at  the  same  wages,  although 
the  fireworks  send  gunpowder  up  and 
the  new  dwellings  bring  rents  down. 
This  much-dandled  theory  occupies 
about  the  same  position  in  economics 
that  a  rubber  doll  occupies  in  the 
nursery:  battered  but  still  smiling,  it 
serves  to  amuse  the  latest  comer. 

Space  is  not  sufficient  for  more 
than  a  mere  reference  to  the  well- 
known  newspaper  ideal  of  the  mother- 
in-law.  I  have  noticed  that  even  edi- 
tors are  not  slow  to  send  for  "my 
wife's  mother"  when  illness  or  trouble 
of  any  kind  assails  the  household. 
And  I  have  also  made  careful  note  of 
the  fact  that  when  any  unhappiness 
has  been  caused  in  a  family  of  my  ac- 
quaintance by  the  much-maligned 
mother-in-law,  it  has  invariably  been 
by  the  husband's  mother;  and  yet  one 
never  hears  women  speak  with  any- 
thing but  consideration  and  respect  of 
mothers-in-law.  As  a  matter  of  fact 

76 


the  modern  mother-in-law,  on  both  Some 
sides  of  the  house,  is  in  general  a  most 
philosophical  and  useful  personage, 
and  her  abolition  would  cause  a  great 
gap  in  many  more  important  places 
than  the  funny  column  of  the  news- 
paper. 

Another  fiction  dear  to  the  repor- 
torial  heart  and  pencil  is  the  woman 
who  screams  and  faints  upon  the  oc- 
currence of  any  accident.  I  have  been 
in  several  rather  thrilling  public  catas- 
trophes and  have  never  yet  heard  a 
woman  scream  or  seen  one  faint  from 
nervous  excitement.  True,  I  did  once 
see  a  man,  when  a  fallen  building  had 
buried  three  men  beneath  the  debris, 
wildly  pulling  laths  from  two  uprights 
on  the  remote  edge  of  the  pile  and 
throwing  them  aimlessly  about;  but 
he  was  not  reported.  And  I  did  read, 
in  the  report  of  the  recent  accident  on 
the  Coast  Line,  of  a  man,  who  was  un- 
hurt, running  through  the  car  yell- 
ing, treading  upon  women  who  were 
pinned  in  the  aisle,  and  being  pre- 
vented from  stepping  upon  an  injured 

77 


Some  woman  with  a  baby  in  her  arms  by 
being  knocked  down  by  another  pas- 
senger. These  things  do  not  of  course 
prove  that  women  do  not  lose  their 
heads  in  emergencies,  but  they  do 
encourage  us  to  believe  that  the  public 
mind  is  prone  to  cling  to  certain  pre- 
conceptions that  may  belong  to  the 
remote  past. 

Perhaps  there  is  a  grain  of  truth 
in  all  of  these  notions,  since  we  who 
have  so  often  crushed  them  to  earth 
see  them  so  blithely  rise  again.  And 
perhaps,  since  the  principles  that  gov- 
ern our  lives  are,  after  all,  so  few  and 
so  easily  acquired,  the  moral  force  of 
the  race  is  to  be  expended  hereafter 
in  determining  with  nicety  and  exact- 
ness how  to  apply  them  to  the  com- 
plexities of  modern  life.  For  how- 
ever we  may  agree  as  to  the  truth  or 
fallacy  of  all  these  things,  we  are  all, 
I  think,  ready  to  affirm  the  unassail- 
ableness  of  Mr.  Tulliver's  statement 
that  this  is  "an  uncommon  puzzlin' 
world." 


78 


A  NEW  POINT  OF  VIEW 

As  we  approach  the  end  of  a  year 
it  is  seemly  for  those  of  us  who  are 
mentally  supple  to  put  ourselves 
through  such  exercises  as  shall  enable 
us  to  keep  up  with  or  at  least  not  lag 
too  far  behind  the  twentieth-century 
procession.  In  so  doing,  those  of  us 
who  are  young  enough  to  dare  it  must 
of  necessity  look  backward,  and  all  of 
us  who  still  "retain  our  faculties" 
must  endeavor  to  look  forward,  that 
we  may  be  prepared  for  the  worst  — 
it  being  self-evident  that  we  are  all 
prepared  for  the  best,  both  in  this  life 
and  that  which  is  to  come. 

In  taking  this  survey  it  is  unques- 
tionably the  duty  of  everyone  who  dis- 
cerns a  cloud,  even  no  larger  than  a 
woman's  hand,  upon  the  h9rizon  of 
our  social  future,  to  provide  himself 
with  the  largest  and  most  musical  fog- 
horn procurable  and  sound  a  note  of 

79 


A  New  warning.  In  pursuance  of  this  solemn 
View  duty  I  wish  to  draw  your  attention  to 
facts  and  figures  that  point  unmistak- 
ably to  a  no  less  serious  culmination 
than  the  extinction  of  the  human  race. 

It  is  hard  for  us,  sitting  here  in  the 
midst  of  man's  ingenious  handiwork, 
surrounded  by  the  evidence  of  his  skill 
and  intelligence,  to  imagine  just  how 
the  world  would  feel  if  the  human  race 
should  become  extinct;  but  even  the 
most  unimaginative  among  us  can 
readily  understand  that  it  would  be 
lonesome.  The  animals  would  drop  a 
tear  to  the  memory  of  the  Humane 
Society,  and  millions  upon  millions  of 
dollars'  worth  of  machinery  would 
rust  in  idleness  since  the  veriest  brute 
would  find  it  impossible  to  make  use 
of  many  of  the  things  that  man  has  de- 
vised. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  add  an  un- 
necessary care  at  this  festive  season 
to  minds  already  burdened  with  the 
Philippines.  Nothing  but  a  strong 
sense  of  duty  and  an  abiding  sym- 
pathy with  the  weaker  sex  morally, 

80 


prompts  me  to  bring  this  matter  be-  A  New 
fore  you,  with  the  following  brief  in-  vkw° 
troduction. 

Countless  ages  ago,  long  before 
any  of  us  were  born,  there  is  every  rea- 
son to  believe  that  men  lived  in  idle- 
ness. In  such  climates  as  permitted 
this  they  multiplied,  and  as  they  ven- 
tured, or  were  crowded,  into  condi- 
tions that  required  work  to  keep  alive, 
they  died.  Thus  only  the  idle  sur- 
vived. This  is  called  survival  of  the 
fittest. 

In  this  primitive  state  men  had 
nothing  whatever  to  do  but  make 
themselves  agreeable,  which  is  their 
natural  bent.  By  a  wise  provision  of 
nature  they  were  handsomer  than 
women.  They  never  shaved  their 
heads,  and  their  hair  hung  in  tendrils 
above  their  manly  brows  and  curled 
about  their  shell-like  ears  and  fell 
in  ringlets  upon  their  symmetrical 
shoulders.  They  were  natural  musi- 
cians, and  oh  how  divinely  they  sang! 
They  were  graceful,  elegant — in  short 

81 


A  New  they  were  "just  perfectly  lovely."  An- 
01View  alogues  of  this  happy  state  are  to  be 
seen  among  the  birds  and  other  ani- 
nials  that  never  work,  except  when  en- 
slaved by  man,  and  where  the  male  is 
much  more  brilliant  and  musical  than 
his  mate. 

Women  in  those  days  were  rather 
plain,  uninteresting  creatures,  but 
men  loved  them, —  probably  because 
men  must  love  somebody  and  won't 
love  each  other.  And  these  idle,  su- 
percilious women  used  to  sit  about  un- 
der the  trees  and  listen  to  the  musical 
contests  of  their  suitors,  make  re- 
marks about  their  personal  appear- 
ance, smile  at  their  innocent  schemes 
for  attracting  attention,  and  behave 
very  much  as  —  well  —  as  was  natural 
under  the  circumstances. 

Of  course  this  idyllic  condition  of 
things  could  not  continue.  And,  as 
usual,  ambition  proved  the  downfall  of 
man.  Gradually  those  beautiful  and 
godlike  creatures  began  to  vie  with 
each  other  for  feminine  favor  in  new 
and  devious  ways.  Their  siren  voices 

82 


whispered  in  the  primitive  feminine  A  New 
ear,  "Idol  of  my  soul,  don't  trouble 
yourself  to  climb  the  bread-fruit  tree 
for  your  luncheon;  let  me  bring  it  to 
you."  Then  after  a  little  while,  "Star 
of  my  destiny,  why  not  let  me  build  a 
shelter  over  you,  lest  the  bread-fruit 
fall  upon  you  and  mar  your" — (and 
here  mendacity  came  to  the  aid  of  am- 
bition, and  flattery  was  born)  — "your 
faultless  and  angelic  features."  Still 
later,  recognizing  the  need  of  his  un- 
attractive companion  for  adornment, 
he  brought  gifts  of  flowers  and  bright 
feathers  and  bits  of  colored  stone  and 
shining  metal,  which  enabled  her  to 
trick  herself  out  quite  stylishly. 

And  thus,  gradually,  men,  alas,  be- 
gan to  work  and  evil  days  came  upon 
the  race. 

Now,  moderation  is  not  a  mascu- 
line quality.  They  tore  through  the 
forests  in  pursuit  of  game;  they 
waded  into  rivers  for  fish;  they 
dragged  about  trees  to  build 'houses; 
they  came  home  all  sloppy  and  tired; 
and  the  harder  they  worked  the  less 

83 


A  New  beautiful  they  became ;  they  shaved 
°  View  °ff  their  hyacinthine  locks,  and  some 
of  them  wore  overalls.  And  they  be- 
gan to  fuss  about  fastening  their 
clothing  with  orange-thorns,  till  one 
of  them  invented  buttons  and  life  be- 
came quite  sordid  and  prosaic  for  the 
poor  fellows. 

Of  course  the  women  enjoyed  it. 
They  sat  about  and  giggled  over  the 
mad  race  for  precedence,  and  ordered 
their  slaves  about,  demanded  more 
flowers  and  stuffed  poultry  for  their 
hats,  more  rooms  in  their  houses, 
larger  and  more  brilliant  stones  to 
wear,  daintier  things  to  eat,  and  be- 
haved altogether  quite  shamefully. 

But  finally  their  day  of  reckoning 
came.  Men  became  interested  in  the 
competition  itself,  and  forgot  all  about 
its  object. 

They  began  to  think  quite  highly 
of  themselves  and  the  more  successful 
among  them  even  went  the  length  of 
considering  themselves  "catches,"  pre- 
suming to  pick  and  choose,  and  to  dis- 
cuss the  advisability  or  non-advisabil- 

84 


ity  of  encumbering  themselves  with    A  New 
extravagant  and  exacting  wives.     In   v?ew° 
other  words,  they  began  to  get  even 
with  the  women  for  their  former  su- 
percilious   and    contemptuous    treat- 
ment. 

Then  the  women  awoke  to  the  fact 
that  they  were  helpless.  They  did  not 
know  how  to  do  anything  but  manage 
men,  and  heretofore  that  had  been  a 
comparatively  easy  task;  as  it  grew 
harder  they  of  necessity  gave  more 
time  to  it,  but  they  never  regained 
their  former  supremacy.  Privately 
they  all  knew  that  the  luckless  primi- 
tive ancestress  who  was  too  lazy  to 
gather  her  own  bread-fruit  was  at  the 
bottom  of  all  the  trouble.  She  had 
given  away  her  sex  and  there  was 
nothing  left  for  them  but  to  make  the 
best  of  it.  So  they  set  about  finding 
out  what  would  please  men,  and  men 
very  affably  aided  them  by  setting 
forth  their  preferences. 

It  was  into  this  epoch  that  most 
of  us,  I  think,  were  born.  And  there 
is  every  indication  that  if  the  world 

85 


A  New   is  to  continue  we  shall  have  to  be  born 
01View   again. 

Men  have  contracted  a  bad  habit  of 
industry;  they  have  piled  up  more 
wealth  than  they  have  time  to  spend, 
and  in  consequence  they  have  founded 
colleges  for  women,  many  of  whom 
had  grown  somewhat  weary  of  sitting 
around  watching  men  work  and  were 
quite  willing  to  go  to  school. 

These  institutions  very  injudi- 
ciously taught  women  all  the  arts  and 
sciences  and  all  the  discoveries  men 
had  made,  and  all  their  ways  of  mak- 
ing money,  with  the  sole  intention  of 
course  of  impressing  upon  them  the 
ability  of  those  who  had  done  all  this 
to  take  care  of  women  for  all  time  to 
come,  and  of  demonstrating  to  them 
the  lack  of  any  necessity  on  their  part 
for  inventing  or  doing  anything  or 
knowing  anything  at  all  about  any- 
thing, except  how  to  make  them- 
selves agreeable  to  men  in  general  and 
to  one  man  in  particular  —  if  he  should 
happen  to  come  along. 

The    professors   in   these   institu- 

86 


tions   always   took  pains   to   impress    A  New 
upon  the  women  who  attended  them   v?ew°J 
that  there  was  no  harm  in  knowing 
things,  provided  they  kept  quiet  about 
it  and  pretended  not  to  know  any- 
thing, and  that  they  must  never  under 
any  circumstances,  unless  forced  by 
starvation,  make  any  practical  use  of 
anything  they  learned,  or  employ  it  in 
earning  money. 

Well,  women  went  on  in  this  way 
for  quite  a  while,  but  again  the  vault- 
ing ambition  of  man  over-leapt  itself, 
and  this  effort  to  show  what  he  had 
done  and  could  do  brought  him  to 
grief.  Women  came  to  know  so  much 
by  and  by  that  they  undertook  to  do 
things,  and  before  men  really  awoke 
to  the  dangers  of  their  situation, 
women  had  sallied  forth  and  gone  to 
work. 

Then  the  awful  horror  of  their 
condition  dawned  upon  the  dominant 
sex.  The  woman  who  could  take  care 
of  herself  would  have  to  be  concili- 
ated. And  men  were  hoist  with  their 
own  petard. 

87 


A  New  I  have  endeavored  thus  briefly  to 
01View  outline  a  situation  that  presents 
strange  questions  for  our  considera- 
tion and  calls  for  a  vital  readjustment 
of  at  least  half  our  views.  Large 
numbers  of  men  have  not  fully  awak- 
ened to  the  real  condition  of  affairs, 
and  no  doubt  those  who  are  comfort- 
ably settled  in  life  under  the  old  re- 
gime may  never  quite  realize  its  vex- 
ations; but  most  of  us  have  more  or 
less  to  do  with  the  training  of  the 
young  and  the  matter  should  there- 
fore claim  our  serious  attention. 

It  is  not  likely  that  in  our  day  mat- 
ters will  reach  such  a  crisis  that  men 
will  depend  entirely  upon  women  for 
support  and  thus  be  obliged  to  marry 
for  homes;  consequently  it  is  not 
likely  that  many  of  us  will  have  to  see 
the  total  disappearance  of  any  desire 
on  the  part  of  women  to  make  them- 
selves agreeable  to  men.  But  indica- 
tions are  not  lacking  that  the  free-and- 
easy  masculine  attitude  toward  matri- 
mony will  soon  become  a  thing  of  the 
past. 

88 


Of  course  there  will  always  be  a  A  New 
large  number  of  useful  and  ornamen-  view° 
tal  men  and  women  who  do  not  want 
to  be  married.  Concerning  these  I 
have  nothing  to  say.  It  may  not  seem 
to  all  of  us  the  happiest  frame  of  mind 
never  to  want  to  be  married,  but  it  is 
certainly  more  comfortable  than  want- 
ing to  be  unmarried,  and  it  is  discreet 
not  to  stir  up  these  good  people  on  the 
subject,  lest  they  become  epigram- 
matical  and  say  disagreeable  personal 
things  as  to  the  relative  number  of 
wrinkles  and  gray  hairs  of  those  in- 
side and  outside  the  matrimonial  pale. 
Even  these  worthy  citizens,  whom  we 
are  all  rather  anxious  to  conciliate  and 
keep  in  good  humor,  would  lament 
with  us  the  total  disappearance  of  an 
institution  which  they  are  always  glad 
to  have  other  people  maintain. 

Primarily,  as  I  have  attempted  to 
show,  men  rather  enjoyed  making 
themselves  agreeable,  and  this  fact 
gives  us  reason  to  hope  that  with  a 
little  judicious  assistance  they  may  re- 
acquire  some  of  their  former  skill  in 

89 


A  New   this  regard.     The  problem  lies  in  the 

Point  of  r    1       1  -i  ... 

View  awful  chasm  between  the  primitive 
and  the  modern  woman.  Still,  there  is 
reason  to  believe  that  if  woman,  with 
her  once  limited  intelligence,  learned 
by  stress  of  circumstances  to  know  ex- 
actly what  she  ought  to  do  to  please 
man,  he,  by  close  attention  and  un- 
limited advice,  can  learn  how  to  please 
her. 

Personally,  I  am  inclined  to  think 
the  matter  not  entirely  hopeless,  and 
when  one  reflects  on  the  able  assist- 
ance always  extended  by  man  to  wo- 
man in  her  efforts  to  learn  what  is 
satisfactory  to  him,  it  seems  a  ques- 
tion of  simple  justice  and  reciprocity 
for  us  to  extend  a  helping  hand  to  him 
in  this  hour  of  need. 

During  the  epoch  that  is  just  clos- 
ing there  have  been  by  careful  esti- 
mate three  hundred  and  fifty-nine 
thousand,  eight  hundred  and  seventy- 
three  books  written  concerning  the 
nature,  tastes,  duties  and  obligations 
of  woman.  In  this  way  we  have  come 
to  know  more  about  ourselves  than  we 

90 


could  have  found  out  by  simply  being  A  New 
women.  Of  course  most  of  these 
books  were  written  by  men,  and  they 
have  not  always  agreed  on  all  points, 
but  as  to  the  basic  principle  there  has 
been  a  singular  and  beautiful  unanim- 
ity, namely,  that  if  women  are  good 
they  will  certainly  get  married.  If  at 
any  time  there  has  been  a  hairbreadth 
diversion  from  this  leading  idea,  it  has 
varied  no  farther  than  to  admit  that 
while  some  women  may  be  very  good 
and  yet  not  be  married,  it  is  an  indis- 
putable truth  that  if  a  woman  is  not 
good  she  will  certainly  not  get  mar- 
ried. 

Concerning  the  nature  of  women, 
these  three  hundred  and  fifty-nine 
thousand,  eight  hundred  and  seventy- 
three  volumes  have  shown  more  varia- 
tion, but  on  one  point  they  have  never 
failed  to  agree,  namely,  that  woman  is 
naturally  the  most  unnatural  person 
in  the  world,  and  if  left  to  herself  and 
not  perpetually  counseled  by  men, 
who  are  naturally  natural,  she  will 
surely  do  things  or  want  to  do  things 

91 


A  New   totally  at  variance  with  all  her  natural 

01View    instincts  and  inclinations. 

Of  course  this  has  made  life  rather 
puzzling  for  women  at  times,  and  yet 
it  has  had  its  advantages.  If  a  woman 
ever  wanted  to  do  anything  that  she 
had  not  been  in  the  habit  of  doing,  she 
could  immediately  consult  a  book  and 
see  whether  it  was  womanly;  and  if  it 
ever  occurred  to  her  that  since  she 
wanted  to  do  it,  and  it  was  innocent  in 
itself,  her  doing  it  might  possibly  go 
to  prove  that  it  was  womanly,  she 
could  read  two  or  three  books  and  find 
out  that  womanly  women  were  wo- 
men whom  men  liked,  and  that  any- 
thing men  liked  was  womanly.  This 
of  course  cleared  up  all  her  difficulties 
and  made  it  very  simple  for  her  to  de- 
cide what  to  do. 

In  addition  to  all  these  books, 
there  have  been  approximately  eighty- 
nine  million,  nine  hundred  and  forty- 
three  thousand,  two  hundred  and 
seventy-nine  columns  of  newspaper 
stuff  called  "Woman  and  Home/' 
which  men  have  prepared  telling  wo- 

92 


men  how  to  be  womanly,  and  how  to  A  New 
dress,  cook,  sew,  think  and  walk,  in  view° 
the  way  men  like,  and  always  promis- 
ing marriage  if  the  directions  are  care- 
fully followed.  (It  is  proper  in  this 
connection  to  state  that  the  above  fig- 
ures do  not  include  Mr.  Bok.  Up  to 
the  time  of  Mr.  Bok's  appearance  sta- 
tistics were  carefully  kept,  but  since 
his  advent  the  statisticians  have  en- 
tirely lost  count.  There  is  reason  to 
believe,  however,  that  the  output  of 
advice  to  women  has  more  than 
doubled.) 

When  one  calls  to  mind  the  fact 
that  no  books  have  yet  been  written 
on  "Man  and  Paternity"  or  "The  True 
Sphere  of  Man,"  and  that  no  news- 
paper in  existence  contains  a  column 
devoted  to  "Man  in  the  Home"  or  "Of 
Interest  to  Men";  that  women  have 
not  published  any  "Heart-to-Heart 
Talks  with  Bachelors"  and  that  very 
little  has  been  said  in  print  as  to 
"The  Kind  of  Men  Women'  Like," 
it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that 
men  grope  about  rather  blindly  when 

93 


A  New   they   endeavor   to    make    themselves 

Point  of       1 

View   charming. 

But  books  and  papers  are  not  the 
only  aids  that  have  been  extended  to 
women  in  these  important  matters. 
Men  have  delivered  many  lectures  and 
sermons  concerning  "The  Ideal  Wo- 
man," in  which  they  have  carefully 
noted  all  their  preferences  and  tastes 
so  that  any  woman  who  was  in  danger 
of  being  simply  a  human  creature,  fol- 
lowing her  instincts  and  allowing  re- 
sults to  justify  her,  has  been  saved 
from  such  disaster  and  enabled  to  lop 
off  any  inclinations  that  would  inter- 
fere with  matrimony. 

It  is  easy  to  see,  therefore,  why 
women  are  today  such  spontaneous 
and  natural  creatures;  and  there  is 
reason  to  hope  that  by  reducing  the 
plan  of  life  for  men  to  a  few  simple 
axioms  they  may  be  relieved  from 
many  perplexities. 

Of  course  under  the  new  dispen- 
sation all  this  printed  matter  will  not 
necessarily  be  wasted.  A  great  deal  of 
it  may  be  used  again  by  changing  the 

94 


pronouns.     For  instance,  some  news-   A  New 

.    ,  . . t          1*1,        1  Point  of 

paper    might,    with    slight    changes,   View 
print  an  article  on  "How  a  Man  May 
Keep    the   Affection    of    His   Wife," 
something  after  this  fashion: 

A  man  should  always  meet  his  wife  with 
a  pleasant  smile  on  his  return  from  his  day's 
work.  Remember  that  she  has  many  cares 
and  do  not  worry  her  with  any  of  yours. 
Don't  tell  her  you  have  a  headache:  no 
woman  likes  a  complaining  husband;  noth- 
ing is  more  likely  to  drive  a  woman  to  her 
club  than  perpetual  complaints. 

Or  something  like  this  on  the  sub- 
ject of  dress: 

Women  care  very  little  about  the  ex- 
pense of  a  man's  clothing;  all  they  ask  is 
that  he  be  simply  and  neatly  dressed.  The 
husband  who  comes  to  dinner  in  a  fresh  seer- 
sucker suit  or  a  pair  of  clean  blue  overalls, 
with  his  wife's  favorite  flower  in  his  button- 
hole, will  be  more  beautiful  in  her  eyes  than 
if  he  were  clad  in  tfie  most  faultless  broad- 
cloth and  polished  .jien. 

Or  on  the  inexhaustible  subject  of 
marriage : 

Young  women  often  accept  ma'ny  atten- 
tions from  and  appear  to  enjoy  the  society 
of  young  men  they  would  not  think  of 
marrying.  Young  men  should  remember 

95 


A  New    this.    A  girl  may  be  much  amused  by  the  wit 
Point  of    and  gayety  of  a  dashing  cavalier,  but  it  by 
View    no  means  follows  that  she  would  select  him 
as  a  husband.    When  it  comes  to  marrying, 
women  want  something  more  than  gallan- 
try.   It  would  be  well  for  some  of  our  reck- 
less young  society  beaux  to  stop  and  inquire 
whether   they  are   the    kind   of   men    from 
whom  an  industrious,  home-loving  woman 
would  choose  the  father  of  her  children. 

Of  course  there  will  have  to  be  a 
series  of  articles  written  by  women  for 
the  leading  magazines  on  "What  Has 
the  Higher  Education  Done  for 
Men?"  The  subject  might  be  divided 
as  follows : 

"Do  our  universities  turn  out  good 
fathers?" 

"What  is  the  relative  health  of  col- 
lege-men and  mechanics?" 

"Do  the  male  graduates  of  our  uni- 
versities have  large  families?" 

If  these  questions  cannot  be  an- 
swered satisfactorily,  it  would  be  well 
to  close  to  men  most  of  our  institu- 
tions of  learning,  since  they  can  be  of 
no  practical  use. 

It  is  easy  to  see  from  these  few  in- 
96 


stances  that  women  will  be  kept  very   A  New 
busy  for  some  time  to  come  remodel-   v?ew° 
ing  our  literature  to  meet  the  exigen- 
cies of  the  times,  and  in  the  meantime 
young  men  will  have  to  be  counseled 
a  great  deal  by  their  elders  before  they 
will  take  in  the  situation  and  acquire 
the  new  point  of  view.     A  judicious 
father   will   talk   to   his    son   in    this 
way: 

"My  boy,  I  hope  you  will  give  up 
that  bad  habit  of  smoking.  You  may 
think  nothing  of  it  at  present,  but,  let 
me  tell  you,  women  don't  like  tobacco. 
They  may  not  say  very  much  about  it, 
but  no  woman  wants  to  kiss  a  man 
whose  lips  and  teeth  are  yellow  and 
whose  moustache  is  discolored  and 
smoky.  I'm  very  much  afraid,  my 
boy,  if  you  go  on,  that  no  nice  girl  will 
marry  you.  Think  of  that ! " 

Of  course  it  will  be  a  trifle  hard  at 
first  for  young  men,  when  they  decide 
on  their  career  and  confide  their  glow- 
ing aspirations  and  ambitions'  to  some 
sage  and  experienced  elder,  to  have 
him  shake  his  head  and  say: 

97 


A  New  "Don't  do  it,  my  boy,  don't  do  it. 
Oiview  You'll  find  it  will  not  please  women." 

"Please  women!  Well,  women  be 
—  displeased  then.  That's  what  I 
want  to  do,  and  it's  what  I  can  do,  and 
it's  what  I'm  going  to  do.  Women 
are  all  very  well  in  their  way,  but  I'm 
not  going  to  fashion  my  affairs  to  suit 
them.  They  can  take  me  or  leave 
me!" 

"My  dear  fellow,  they'll  do  both. 
You'd  better  listen  to  me.  If  you  do 
as  you  say,  you're  very  likely  never  to 
find  a  wife.  Women  don't  like  these 
enterprises;  they  want  you  to  be  just 
the  kind  of  man  their  fathers  were: 
good  and  quiet  and  conservative.  Did 
you  ever  notice  how  women  love  their 
fathers?  Well,  you  must  try  to  be 
exactly  like  them  —  it's  the  only  way 
to  please  women." 

It  will  perhaps  be  many  years  be- 
fore men  will  learn  how  to  address  an 
assemblage  of  women  under  the  new 
regime.  Habits  are  stubborn  things 
and  just  how  a  man  can  talk  to  women 
without  telling  them  he  is  heartily  in 

98 


favor  of  everything  they  are  trying  to  A  New 
do  to  improve  themselves,  because  it  y?ew  ° 
will  aid  them  in  the  training  of  their 
sons,  I  for  one  am  at  a  loss  to  imagine. 
It  is  just  possible  that  great  persist- 
ence on  the  part  of  women  in  encour- 
aging men  to  develop  themselves 
mentally,  morally  and  physically,  not 
from  any  inherent  desire  for  perfec- 
tion but  that  they  may  thereby  fit 
themselves  to  bring  up  their  daugh- 
ters to  be  good  and  great  women,  may 
serve  to  divert  the  mind  of  the  aver- 
age masculine  orator  from  his  pet 
theme.  This,  however,  will  be  long 
after  we  are  all  dead. 

In  the  meantime  women  should 
lose  no  time  in  formulating  their  con- 
ception of  a  manly  man,  that  men  may 
set  about  conforming  to  their  stan- 
dards. To  do  this  thoroughly  they 
must  begin  in  the  nursery,  and  reverse 
the  first  two  maxims  of  child-train- 
ing, so  that  in  the  future  we  may  hear: 
"Oh  come  come!  Little  boys -should- 
n't/5 and  "Oh,  never  mind.  Girls  will 
be  girls!" 

99 


A  New  If  men  ever  become  restive  under 
01View  the  exactions  of  women  they  must 
find  comfort  in  the  fact  that  they  are 
living  up  to  the  ideals  of  what  they 
have  always  insisted  is  the  better  half 
of  the  race,  and  if  this  does  not  con- 
sole them  for  not  being  allowed  to  de- 
cide on  questions  of  their  own  nature 
and  instincts  they  may  add  to  it  the 
reflection  that  they  must  be  good  or 
they  will  not  get  married.  This  latter 
reflection,  we  can  assure  them,  will 
sustain  them  through  a  good  many 
ages  of  subjection.  It  will  make  them 
modest,  unassuming,  industrious  and 
affectionate,  and  after  a  few  genera- 
tions they  will  begin  to  meet  and  talk 
about  their  own  virtues,  and  tell  each 
other  how  much  better  than  women 
they  are,  and  shed  tears  over  each 
other  because  they  love  their  children, 
and -talk  in  public  of  what  a  powerful 
emotion  paternal  love  is,  and  boast 
about  their  "influence,"  and  wind  up 
by  concluding  that  they  hold  the  des- 
tinies of  the  world  in  their  fists. 

When  they  have  reached  this  high 

100 


degree  of  moral  perfection,  coupled   A  New 
with  meekness,  we  shall  fully  under-  vi>ew°f 
stand  the  poet's  assurance  that  "noth- 
ing doth  so  become  a  man  as  modest 
sweetness  and  humility." 


101 


THE  MODERN  HEROINE 

Those  of  us  who  have  reached  that 
modest  summit  called  middle  life  and 
sit  fanning  ourselves  and  surveying 
the  landscape  before  starting  down 
hill,  may  I  think  find  wholesome  dis- 
cipline in  being  called  upon  now  and 
then  to  speak  a  word  to  those  behind 
us  in  years  though  often  in  naught 
else.  Indeed  I  am  not  certain  but  that 
the  benefit  is  largely  to  the  speaker 
rather  than  to  the  hearer.  There  are 
useful  lessons  to  be  derived  from  the 
process  of  overhauling  that  accumula- 
tion of  odds  and  ends  which  we  refer 
to  rather  proudly  at  times  as  our  ex- 
perience, and  these  lessons  become 
emphatic,  even  poignant,  if  we  have 
in  view  selecting  therefrom  something 
that  would  prove  valuable  to  us  were 
we  allowed  another  start.  Too  often 
they  bring  us  face  to  face  with  the 
probability  that  the  often  longed-for 

102 


privilege  of  "beginning  again"  would   The  Modern 
result  in  an  entirely  new  and  original 
set  of  blunders. 

I  have  been  driven  to  these  rather 
somber  reflections  by  thinking  over 
all  the  subjects  upon  which  I  have  at 
various  times  written  and  spoken  with 
a  view  to  improving  the  minds  but 
principally  the  morals  of  my  contem- 
poraries. Most  of  them  were  intend- 
ed to  bring  about  much-needed  social 
reform.  Let  me  allay  your  fears  by 
stating  that  none  of  them  has  been 
entirely  successful.  The  world  is  still 
quite  a  comfortable,  even  pleasant 
place  of  residence  in  spite  of  my  ef- 
forts, and  it  is  with  a  very  distinct 
sense  of  relief  that  I  find  myself  sur- 
rounded by  those  who  are  forming 
their  world,  instead  of  reforming  it. 

Properly,  old  age  ought  to  be  a 
subject  of  interest  to  us  all,  since  we 
are  all  working  toward  it,  but  curi- 
ously enough  it  is  not.  I  leave  you  to 
account  for  my  certainty  'that  the 
young  woman,  and  preeminently  the 
American  young  woman,  interests  all 

103 


The  Modern  of  us.  I  have  therefore  chosen  to 
speak  of  her  as  portrayed  by,  but  more 
especially  as  suggestive  of,  our  mod- 
ern fiction.  You  will  pardon  me  if  I 
wander  at  will  from  realism  to  reality, 
from  the  portrait  to  the  model,  from 
the  heroine  to  the  young  woman  her- 
self. 

The  morality  of  our  own  fiction, 
which  has  often  been  ascribed  to  the 
omnipresence  of  our  young  women,  is 
certainly  not  to  our  discredit,  how- 
ever much  the  advocate  of  erotic  fer- 
vor may  strive  to  convince  us  that  it 
is;  and  if  her  censorship  continues  to 
keep  it  free  from  the  cheap  effects  of 
intrigue  and  passion,  not  only  art  but 
society  will  be  still  more  in  her  debt. 

I  have  said  that  the  young  woman 
interests  all  of  us.  Individually,  I  do 
not  know  that  she  is  more  interesting 
than  her  brother.  I  have  not  found 
her  so,  although  young  men  have  re- 
peatedly assured  me  that  she  is.  But 
collectively,  by  reason  of  the  transi- 
tion state  of  society,  she  is  something 

104 


more  of  a  problem  than  heretofore.  The  Modern 
And  the  spirit  which  leads  us  to  write  Herome 
of  her  with  a  capital  Y  and  a  capital 
W  must  of  necessity  react  upon  her 
individually.  Or  have  I  reversed  mat- 
ters, and  is  it  the  fact  that  she  is  be- 
ginning to  write  herself  in  larger  type 
that  has  forced  the  problem  upon  us? 
It  would  be  strange  if,  with  all  the 
prominence  that  has  been  given  her  of 
late  in  talk  and  in  print,  she  were  not 
a  trifle  self-conscious,  a  little  over- 
sure  of  herself.  In  the  face  of  the 
charity  and  even  love  with  which  we 
have  always  regarded  these  youth- 
ful traits  in  her  brother,  we  can  hardly 
condemn  them  in  her.  And  since  we 
make  no  secret  of  the  fact  that  she  in- 
terests us  we  must  not  be  surprised 
that  she  finds  herself  interesting. 
That  she  bears  our  inquisitive  and 
somewhat  impertinent  scrutiny  with 
singular  dignity  and  good  nature  we 
must  all  acknowledge;  and  if  there  is 
in  this  at  times  a  suggestion  that  she 
is  sublimely  indifferent  to  it,  we  may 
encourage  ourselves  with  the  thought 

105 


The  Modern   that  she  must  be  developing1  naturally, 

Heroine       .  .  J         ji 

since  nature  is  always  profoundly  un- 
concerned as  to  our  opinions.  Per- 
haps after  all  she  does  not  really  know 
how  much  we  are  thinking  of  her,  and 
the  seeming  indifference  may  be  a 
blissful  unconsciousness.  If  this  is  so, 
then  I  trust  this  paper  may  not 
awaken  her  to  any  nervous  anxiety  or 
disturb  by  so  much  as  a  ripple  her 
charming  tranquillity. 

In  speaking  of  the  heroine  I  have 
no  desire,  even  if  it  were  possible,  to 
ignore  the  modern  hero.  I  have  gen- 
erally found  him  lurking  in  the  im- 
mediate vicinity,  and  there  is  little 
probability  that  this  occasion  will 
prove  an  exception.  If  he  is  not  quite 
so  often  on  our  pens  and  tongues,  it 
is  not  that  he  is  less  often  in  our 
thoughts,  but  rather  that  we  have 
learned  what  to  expect  of  him  and 
have  decided  to  let  him  work  out  his 
own  problem  in  his  own  way.  Just 
how  long  it  will  be  before  we  treat  our 
young  woman  in  the  same  way  no  one 
can  perhaps  say;  but  her  increasing 

106 


fitness  and  willingness  to  control  her   The  Modern 

,°        .  Heroine 

own  destiny  makes  it  probable  that 
the  time  is  not  far  distant. 

So  much  has  been  said  and  written 
concerning  feminine  complexity  that 
women  themselves  have  almost  come 
to  think  their  mental  plan  more  in- 
tricate than  that  of  man.  The  actions 
of  men  are  unquestionably  simpler 
and  more  unconstrained  than  those  of 
women,  but  the  difference  is,  I  think, 
easily  accounted  for  by  the  firm 
ground  upon  which  every  young  man 
finds  himself  at  the  outset  of  life.  Just 
what  he  will  do  or  how  he  will  suc- 
ceed in  it  may  be  and  generally  is 
problematical,  but  all  his  doubts  are 
founded  upon  one  unvarying  and  un- 
disputable  fact  —  that  his  life  will  be 
what  he  makes  it.  His  successes  and 
his  failures  alike  will  be  his  own;  the 
former  a  source  of  justifiable  pride, 
the  latter  to  be  borne  without  whim- 
pering, since  he  alone  is  responsible. 

Now,  let  any  young  man,'  by  a  vio- 
lent effort  of  the  imagination,  substi- 
tute for  this  wholesome  certainty  a 

107 


The  Modern  nebulous  uncertainty  concerning  his 
future,  an  uncertainty  in  all  things 
save  one:  that  it  will  in  no  way  de- 
pend upon  his  merit;  that  his  success 
or  failure  may  hinge  upon  something 
as  trivial  as  the  curve  of  his  eyebrows 
or  the  way  in  which  his  hair  ripples 
above  them.  I  say  let  him  imagine 
this,  if  he  can,  and  ask  himself  what 
inconsistencies  of  behavior  would 
result. 

As  for  myself,  the  longer  I  live  the 
more  my  wonder  grows  that  our  girls 
are  as  self-poised,  as  reasonable,  as 
straightforward  as  they  are,  in  view  of 
the  haze  of  irresponsibility  and  uncer- 
tainty with  which  we  surround  them. 
I  know  households  in  which  young 
girls  are  allowed  to  drift  through 
daily  life  with  less  definite  purpose 
than  a  poodle.  They  help  a  little,  they 
make  their  own  simple  gowns,  they 
practice  something  called  music,  and 
presently,  after  groping  about  in  inan- 
ity for  a  few  years,  they  concentrate 
their  energies  on  invalidism  as  an  oc- 
cupation, in  which  neither  ability, 

108 


education,  capital  nor  industry  are  re-   The  Modem 
quired,  and  which  must  therefore  be 
distinctively  feminine. 

Suppose  we  should  try  this  plan 
with  a  son :  teach  him  to  be  nice  and 
tidy  and  make  his  summer  coats  and 
darn  his  stockings;  let  him  take  banjo 
lessons;  tell  him  his  highest  duty  is  to 
be  a  good  husband  and  father  and 
carefully  conceal  from  him  all  the 
facts  and  duties  of  paternity  for  fear 
of  "brushing  the  bloom  from  his 
youth";  teach  him  directly  or  indi- 
rectly that  the  one  success  of  his  life 
lies  in  matrimony,  and  that  matri- 
mony depends  primarily  upon  good 
looks;  compare  his  eyebrows  with  the 
eyebrows  of  the  other  boys  in  his  set, 
and  every  time  a  boy  comes  about  the 
house  discuss  his  personal  appearance 
carefully  and  in  detail  with  your  son ; 
have  his  friends  divided  into  "real 
pretty  boys"  and  boys  who  are  "not 
pretty  but  have  good  figures,"  and  a 
few  boys  who  (poor  creatures)  are 
not  at  all  pretty  but  kind-hearted  and 
pleasant.  I  cannot  give  you  all  the 

109 


The  Modern  instructions,  never  having  had  any 
Heroine  Daughters,  but  most  of  you  can  fill  out 
the  other  details  from  memory. 

At  the  risk  of  extreme  cruelty  in 
the  interests  of  science,  I  should  like 
to  subject  one  young  man  to  that 
which  awaits  numbers  of  young  wo- 
men; I  should  like  to  send  him  home 
from  college  with  something  like  this : 

"Now  that  you  have  completed 
your  education,  I  trust  you  will  settle 
down  contentedly  and  help  your 
father.  Of  course  I  do  not  expect  you 
to  thoroughly  learn  his  business; 
there  will  be  ample  time  for  that  when 
you  have  a  store  or  an  office  of  your 
own.  But  I  hope  you  will  cheerfully 
assist  him,  without  salary  beyond  your 
board  and  clothes,  and  in  the  mean- 
time pick  up  such  information  as  you 
can  concerning  his  duties. 

"Do  not,  however,  upon  any  con- 
sideration betray  any  desire  to  under- 
take his  work,  no  matter  how  compe- 
tent you  may  become.  This  would  be 
extremely  improper.  In  other  words, 
prepare  yourself  surreptitiously  for  a 

110 


certain  line  of  life,  and  carefully  re-   The  Modem 
frain  from  applying  for  it." 

Is  it  not  possible  that  under  this 
bewildering  system  our  young  man 
might  become  just  a  trifle  "complex"  ? 

That  the  young  woman  of  today, 
both  in  life  and  in  literature,  is  often 
rather  puzzlingly  complex  I  freely  ad- 
mit. That  she  is  sometimes  unduly 
introspective,  full  of  vague  question- 
ings and  unsatisfactory  replies,  a  crea- 
ture of  eager  desire  for  knowledge 
and  of  few  opportunities  to  apply  it, 
of  consequent  restlessness  and  fever- 
ish and  unsatisfying  activity  —  all  of 
us  who  know  and  love  her  can  testify. 
But  that  she  will  outgrow  this,  not  by 
throwing  it  aside  but  by  adapting  it  to 
her  use  and  in  so  doing  gain  strength 
without  losing  her  charm,  I  at  least 
am  fully  persuaded. 

Certainly,  with  all  her  faults,  she  is 
a  much  better  companion  both  in  and 
out  of  fiction  since  she  ceased  to 
swoon  and  learned  to  swim ;  and  even 
the  man  who  thinks  he  likes  the  old- 
fashioned  girl  would,  I  suspect,  find 

111 


The  Modern    himself    rather    helpless    if    fainting 
Herome    g^y^  So  to  speak,  be  revived  and 
become  chronic  with  the  modern  ath- 
letic heroine. 

Glancing  over  recent  English  and 
American  novels,  and  calling  to  mind 
the  elegantly  restrained  emotions  of 
Evelina  and  Cecilia,  one  cannot  but 
wonder  whether  women  or  only  nov- 
elists have  changed  their  ways  so  pro- 
digiously in  a  brief  one  hundred  years. 
For  the  enlightenment  of  those 
who  are  unfamiliar  with  such  scenes, 
I  will  state  that  the  following  is  a  de- 
scription of  a  proposal  of  marriage 
from  the  pen  of  Miss  Burney,  as  writ- 
ten by  the  heroine  in  a  letter  to  her 
father: 

"My  lord,"  cried  I,  endeavoring  to  dis- 
engage my  hand,  "pray  let  me  go." 

"I  will,"  cried  he,  to  my  inexpressible 
confusion  dropping  upon  one  knee,  "if  you 
wish  me  to  leave  you." 

"Oh,  my  lord,"  exclaimed  I,  "rise,  I  be- 
seech you,  rise.  Such  a  posture  to  me  — 
surely  your  lordship  is  not  so  cruel  as  to 
mock  me." 

"Mock  you,"  repeated  he  earnestly ;  "no, 
I  revere  you !  I  esteem  and  I  admire  you 

112 


above  all  human  beings,  you  are  the  friend    The  Modern 
to  whom  my  soul  is  attached  as  to  its  bet-    Heroine 
ter  half,  you  are  the  most  amiable,  the  most 
perfect  of  women,  and  you  are  dearer  to  me 
than  language  has  the  power  of  telling." 

I  attempt  not  to  describe  my  sensations 
at  that  moment ;  I  scarce  breathed ;  I 
doubted  if  I  existed;  the  blood  forsook  my 
cheeks,  and  my  feet  refused  to  sustain  me. 
Lord  Orville,  hastily  rising,  supported  me 
to  a  chair,  upon  which  I  sank  almost  lifeless. 

I  have  not,  for  some  years  at  least, 
been  present  upon  such  an  occasion, 
but  something  in  the  walk  and  conver- 
sation of  the  twentieth-century  young 
woman  leads  me  to  think  that  regular 
gymnastic  exercise,  with  a  moderate 
allowance  of  basket-ball,  tennis  and 
golf  would  save  her  from  a  total  col- 
lapse even  under  these  trying  cir- 
cumstances. 

Every  woman  knows  that  the 
great  struggle  of  life  is  to  stand 
bravely  up  before  emotion,  not  to  be 
swept  away  by  it.  Why  should  we 
not  teach  our  girls  to  build  their  lives 
firm  and  strong,  as  we  try  to  teach  our 
boys,  knowing  all  the  whirlwinds  of 
feeling  that  must  try  their  strength, 

113 


The  Modern  and  leaving  marriage  out  of  the  ques- 
Heroine  tjQn?  They  will  marry,  no  doubt,  but 
when  they  do,  let  it  be  because  some- 
thing stronger  than  the  structure  they 
have  built  sweeps  it  away,  and  not  be- 
cause of  the  first  gust  of  feeling  that 
blows  through  their  vacant  lives. 
Women  suffer  enough  already  from 
strained  emotion;  they  are  not  con- 
tent to  be  happy  as  men  are;  they 
want  to  be  tragically  happy;  they 
want,  alas,  "to  be  understood" — as  if 
any  human  being  ever  enjoyed  that 
luxury. 

Passing  in  review  that  notable  list 
of  women  created  by  George  Eliot, 
we  see  in  Dorothea  Brooke  and  Gwen- 
dolen Grandcourt  —  two  of  the  most 
pathetic  figures  in  literature  —  a  faint 
foreshadowing  of  the  young  woman 
of  today.  Poor  Dorothea,  with  her 
capacity  for  devotion,  her  singleness 
of  purpose,  her  scorn  of  pettiness, 
groping  in  the  damp  mist  of  useless- 
ness  that  surrounded  the  English  gen- 
tlewoman! And  walking  beside  her, 

114 


in  that  strange  blindness  to  his  own  The  Modern 
needs  and  to  her  efficiency,  Lydgate, 
who  sees  in  Rosamund  Vincy's  beauty 
everything  that  is  gracious  and  wo- 
manly—  everything  that  Dorothea  is 
and  Rosamund  is  not !  Perhaps  times 
have  not  and  will  never  change 
greatly  in  this;  and  if  a  certain  type 
of  self-sufficient  masculinity  continues 
to  remain  afraid  of  the  young  woman 
of  too  many  ideas  (I  believe  he  gen- 
erally calls  them  "notions")  it  is  only 
fair  that  he  should  bear  without  sym- 
pathy the  hopeless  vacuity  that  must 
be  fairly  maddening  when  twenty-five 
or  thirty  years  have  robbed  it  of 
curves  and  dimples  and  distracting 
pink-and-whiteness. 

In  spite  of  the  oft-repeated  charge 
that  women  are  unfair  to  each  other 
in  life,  we  have  little  reason  to  com- 
plain of  such  injustice  in  literature. 
Sometimes,  as  in  Mrs.  Ward's  Eli- 
nor, we  suspect  an  unfairness  that 
amounts  to  partiality  for  her  Own  sex, 
and  her  portrait  of  Lucy  ought  to  go 
a  long  way  in  refuting  any  charge  of 

115 


The  Modern   lack  of  appreciation  of  the  American 

Heroine  Qn  the         ^  Qf  the  cultivate(J 


lishwoman.  Lucy  may  be  a  New 
England  type;  let  us  hope  she  is;  but 
whether  she  is  or  not  it  is  comforting 
to  know  that  Mrs.  Ward  thinks  she  is. 

If  one  feels  doubtful  of  Lucy's  re- 
ality, the  picture  that  Miss  Wilkins 
has  given  in  "The  Portion  of  Labor" 
of  Ellen  Brewster,  sprung  from  even 
lower  conditions,  is  certainly  reassur- 
ing. I  wish  I  were  able  to  say  con- 
fidently that  innate  refinement  would 
in  the  average  girl  thus  survive  the 
constant  presence  of  vulgarity.  But 
I  cannot.  Lucy  and  Ellen  may  be  true 
to  life,  but  they  are  not  average  girls. 
More  than  that,  I  fear  they  are  some- 
what infrequent  even  in  that  unde- 
fined region  above  the  average. 

It  is  not  the  portrayal  of  women, 
either  young  or  old,  that  has  given 
Mr.  Howells  his  fame  as  an  American 
novelist.  But,  looking  over  the  girls 
to  whom  he  has  introduced  us,  we 
must  allow  that  they  are  quite  as  in- 
teresting as  those  to  whom  we  could 

116 


introduce  him  if  he  were  to  come  The  Modem 
among  us.  Imogen  Graham  in  "In- 
dian Summer"  is  certainly  deliciously 
young,  and  her  avowed  "love  for 
weird  things"  has  a  strangely  familiar 
sound.  Alice  in  "April  Hopes,"  with 
her  overwrought  conscience,  though 
not  a  familiar  type  among  us,  is  no 
doubt  a  legitimate  survival  of  puri- 
tanism.  Lydia  Blood  is  certainly 
rather  colorless  for  a  heroine,  but  this 
detracts  in  no  way  from  the  interest 
of  what  happens  to  her.  And  then  he 
has  given  us  the  two  young  women 
in  "The  Landlord  at  Lion's  Head"— I 
have  forgotten  their  names  —  both  of 
whom  are  quite  delightfully  subtle  in 
their  different  ways.  And  Kitty  in  "A 
Chance  Acquaintance,"  thoroughly 
wholesome  and  likable;  and  the  Lap- 
ham  girls,  whom  we  all  recognize 
whether  we  like  them  or  not.  Indeed, 
the  list,  although  somewhat  common- 
place, is  just  such  as  any  young  man 
might  make,  if  early  fame  should  call 
upon  him  to  enumerate  the  young 
women  who  have  influenced  him. 

117 


The  Modern  I  do  not  discover  that  the  popular 
belief  that  young  women  are  becom- 
ing too  independent  to  be  lovable  is 
borne  out  by  the  popular  novel.  Love 
and  marriage  seem  to  hold  their  own 
as  the  dominating  theme  of  fiction, 
and  while  both  hero  and  heroine  an- 
alyze their  affection  in  the  most 
searching  fashion,  and  seem  disposed 
(no  doubt  as  a  result  of  higher  educa- 
tion) to  test  it  scientifically  as  well  as 
emotionally,  the  conclusion  seems 
usually  to  be  that  it  is  practically  in- 
destructible. 

Indeed  there  is  something  almost 
pathetic  in  the  determination  with 
which  we  all  cling  to  the  belief  that 
the  truly  noble  love  but  once.  The 
fact  that  we  have  all  been  in  love 
many  times  seems  not  in  the  least  to 
affect  the  fervor  of  this  belief.  The 
young  woman  whose  pathway  is 
strewn  with  the  fragments  of  broken 
engagements  speaks  with  scorn  of  the 
heroine  who  does  not  remain  true  to 
her  first  love  through  endless  compli- 
cations; and  the  solid  citizen  laughs 

118 


with  his  matronly  wife  over  the  hope-  The  Modern 
less  grief  that  submerged  his  youth 
when  the  village  doctor's  daughter 
walked  up  the  aisle  to  wed  his  rival  — 
"Just  a  fancy,  a  boyish  fancy,  my 
dear";  and  his  wife  smiles  serenely 
and  says,  "Oh,  yes,  of  course/'  with 
calm  disregard  of  the  night  she  stood 
on  the  veranda  and  said,  "Forever,  yes, 
forever,"  to  the  druggist's  clerk.  They 
recovered;  therefore  it  was  not  love; 
and  yet  the  man  knows  that  if  the 
doctor's  daughter  had  smiled  upon 
him  he  would  have  made  her  the  same 
considerate  husband  he  has  always 
been;  and  the  good  wife  would  have 
been  an  equally  serene  good  wife  to  the 
druggist's  clerk.  One  absorbing  love 
at  a  time  is  about  all  we  exact  of  real 
life,  but  for  purposes  of  romance  a  dis- 
appointment that  allows  itself  to  be 
mitigated  by  time  is  beneath  con- 
tempt. We  will  have  none  of  it,  in 
books. 

At  the  risk  of  irrelevances  (which 
I  have  studiously  avoided  thus  far)  I 
want  to  warn  the  modern  young  wo- 

119 


The  Modern  man  against  a  variation  of  this  idea 
that  recently  came  to  my  notice  in  a 
novel  by  a  very  promising  and  popular 
author.  The  heroine  of  this  realistic 
sketch,  who  seemed  to  be  in  high  fa- 
vor with  the  writer,  announces  herself 
calmly  as  so  much  in  love  with  two 
men  at  once  as  to  render  it  rank  injus- 
tice to  marry  either  while  the  other 
lives.  This  hopeless  predicament  is 
relieved  only  when  one  of  the  men, 
with  that  eagerness  for  self-sacrifice 
that  characterizes  his  sex,  betakes 
himself  to  a  remote  island  of  the  sea 
and  sends  word  that  he  is  dead. 
Whereupon,  after  a  period  of  what 
might  be  called  half  mourning,  the 
young  woman  marries  the  other  man, 
only  to  have  the  first  return,  thus  in- 
volving her  in  most  distressing  emo- 
tional complications.  The  time  which 
I  was  permitted  to  have  this  volume 
from  the  circulating  library  unhappily 
expired  at  this  juncture,  and  it  was 
torn  from  my  grasp;  but  I  gleaned 
from  an  exhaustive  review  in  a  lead- 
ing periodical  that  the  husband  suc- 

120 


cumbed  to  the  hopelessness  of  the  The  Modem 
situation  and  took  his  turn  at  dying,  Herome 
whereupon  the  widow  bestowed  her 
left  hand,  so  to  speak,  upon  the  other. 
Now,  frankly,  I  prefer  the  old 
deathless-and-eternal  love-theory,  no 
matter  how  fallacious  it  may  be,  to 
this  sort  of  emotional  mathematics; 
and  I  mention  the  subject  only  in  the 
hope  of  discouraging  any  tendency 
that  may  be  cropping  up  among 
young  women  in  real  life  (upon  which 
of  course  the  novelist  always  draws 
for  his  material)  to  love  one  man  with 
the  right  ventricle  of  her  heart  and 
another  with  the  left. 

Candidly,  this  whole  subject  of 
marriage,  which  has  formed  such  a 
large  part  of  fiction  in  times  past,  is,  I 
think,  destined  to  see  great  changes  in 
the  future.  The  vaguely  distressing 
rumors,  which  some  of  you  may  have 
heard,  of  the  great  decline  and  prob- 
able decay  of  this  institution  I  some- 
times think  you  do  not  regard  with 
the  proper  degree  of  solemnity.  To 

121 


The  Modern  avert  this  catastrophe  it  will  be  abso- 
lutely necessary  for  young  men  to  face 
the  fact  that  they  are  socially  in  a  very 
bad  way.  Indeed,  there  is  every  rea- 
son to  believe  that  they  must  remodel 
their  entire  line  of  conduct  and  ac- 
quire a  new  and  very  complex  system 
of  tactics.  To  please  a  woman  who  is 
anxious  to  be  pleased  is  one  thing,  but 
to  please  a  woman  who  is  so  pleased 
with  herself  that  she  doesn't  feel  the 
need  of  your  efforts  is  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent matter.  It  is  very  evident  that 
the  hero  of  the  future  has  no  easy  task 
before  him. 

As  for  the  young  woman,  with 
this  upheaval  of  all  our  former  preju- 
dices on  her  hands,  would  it  not  be  un- 
reasonable for  us  to  exact  of  her 
the  cultivation  of  her  grandmother's 
graces?  If  the  manners  of  men 
toward  her  and  hers  toward  them 
have  changed  a  little  in  ways  that 
seem  to  us  sometimes  for  the  worse, 

9  is  it  quite  fair  to  lay  the  blame  always 

on  her  shoulders?     Is  it  not  possible 
that   she  is  simply  rebelling  a  little 

122 


against  carrying  more  than  her  share  The  Modem 
of  the  world's  morals,  and  may  not 
the  lofty  scorn  of  her  young  inde- 
pendence prove  in  the  end  a  more 
healthful  influence  than  the  helpless 
tears  of  her  former  dependence? 

Whether  it  does  or  not,  we  must 
face  the  fact  that  life  has  changed  for 
both  the  hero  and  the  heroine.  They, 
like  the  rest  of  us,  are  more  or  less  in 
the  grip  of  inanimate  things,  and  it  is 
unfair  for  us  to  try  them  by  the  stan- 
dards of  the  past.  The  manners  of  the 
last  century  would  be  affectation  in 
this;  the  occupations  of  fifty  years 
ago  have  been  taken  from  men  and 
women  alike,  by  the  relentless  march 
of  discovery  and  invention;  but  the 
goodness  and  honor  and  devotion  and 
candor  of  the  soul  remain  untouched. 

For  the  hero  I  can  speak  but  super- 
ficially;  he  seems  to  me  to  have  gained 
both  mentally  and  morally  since  my 
youth.  But  for  the  heroine,  both  in 
books  and  out  of  them,  I  can  say  with 
sincerity  and  knowledge  that  she  is  a 
more  gracious  and  helpful  girl,  makes 

123 


The  Modern    a  better  wife  and  wiser  mother  if  she 
lerome    marrjeSj  anc^   jf  notj  a  happier  and 

more  useful  woman  than  the  girl  of 
twenty  years  ago. 


124 


THE  WAY  TO  ALTRURIA 

The  time  is  past  when  the  consci- 
entious student  of  social  conditions 
may  ignore  Altruria.  The  fact  that  it 
never  existed,  and  never  will  exist  as 
some  have  pictured  it,  does  not  pre- 
vent its  widespread  influence  on  the 
thought  of  today.  Doubts  have  been 
cast  upon  the  existence  of  Heaven  and 
Hell,  and  yet  the  most  rigorous 
doubter  does  not  deny  the  potentiality 
of  these  two  ideas  in  the  world's 
growth.  None  of  us  are  opposed 
to  Heaven,  constructed  according  to 
our  own  plans  and  specifications,  but 
most  of  us  have  well-grounded  objec- 
tions to  Hell;  and  in  our  efforts 
to  enforce  these  objections  we  have 
not  found  it  advisable  to  ignore  the 
prevalent  belief.  Possibly  .the  be- 
lief in  Altruria  is  not  so  prevalent, 
but  in  any  case  it  cannot  be  safely 
ignored. 

125 


The  Way  Every  man  or  woman  who  can  ap- 
ina  pear  before  an  audience  of  semi-intel- 
ligent citizens,  harassed  as  most  citi- 
zens are  by  the  daily  struggle  with 
hampering  conditions,  and  paint  for 
them  a  seductive  picture  of  social  life 
free  from  daily  fight  with  all  that  is 
evil  in  human  nature  and  obdurate  in 
human  circumstances,  is  almost  cer- 
tain of  a  hearing  and  a  following.  It 
is  far  easier  to  paint  such  a  picture 
than  to  tell  the  halting  steps  by  which 
this  blessedness  is  to  be  reached.  But 
men  and  women  who  are  tired  of  the 
struggle,  more  especially  those  who 
have  been  worsted  in  the  struggle,  are 
not  exacting  as  to  how,  so  that  the  end 
described  be  soothing  to  self-love  and 
sufficiently  brilliant  to  the  imagina- 
tion. Naturalists  have  repeatedly  as- 
serted that  angels  could  not  fly  with 
feathered  wings,  but  thus  far  they 
have  had  no  appreciable  effect  on  the 
average  Easter-card. 

A  modern  critic  has  said  that  the 
world  of  art  is  divided  between  "a 
passion  for  perfection  and  a  madness 

126 


for  reform."    This  might  truthfully  be   The  Way 

.    <  «.,•  11       o         to  Altruria 

said  of  social  conditions  as  well.  So- 
ciety has  ailments  many  and  serious, 
not  more  serious  than  of  old  but  seri- 
ous nevertheless.  Indeed  it  would 
sometimes  seem  that  as  the  burden 
grows  lighter  we  resent  it  more;  we 
begin  to  ask,  "Why  any  burden  at 
all  ?  "  It  is  only  those  who  are  climb- 
ing upward  that  busy  themselves  in 
computing  the  distance  yet  to  climb, 
and  to  them  it  seems  long  and  weari- 
some. That  we  magnify  the  poverty, 
disease,  suffering  and  injustice  about 
us  is  proof  conclusive  that  we  are  get- 
ting on.  We  will  not  admit  as  did  our 
forefathers  that  God  cursed  man  and 
assigned  him  as  his  noblest  duty  the 
patient  acceptance  of  his  curse.  So 
far  has  humanity  advanced,  that  we 
begin  to  peer  through  the  mists  ahead 
for  the  shores  of  Utopia,  to  think  and 
talk  of  it  as  possible;  to  seek  remedies, 
to  resent  our  aches  and  pains,  jto  listen 
to  a  multitude  of  counselors  in  the 
hope  of  finding  wisdom.  We  have 
reached,  in  short,  the  "passion  for  per- 

127 


The  Way   fection,"  and  all  this  is  legitimate  and 

:oAltruria 


Our  age  shows  strange  contrasts 
of  the  faith-cure,  agnosticism  and 
ritualism,  of  Calvinism  and  theosophy, 
of  individualism  and  collectivism.  We 
are  all  bound  for  perfection,  each  on 
his  own  flying-machine,  or  trudging 
along  on  his  old-fashioned  legs.  And 
we  are  getting  on.  This  point  I  wish 
to  emphasize. 

It  has  become  so  much  the  fashion 
for  speakers  and  writers  to  draw  at- 
tention to  our  social  ailments  that  I 
think  we  are  in  danger  of  over-esti- 
mating them.  Most  of  us  have  heard 
so  much  of  the  cruelty  and  injustice 
exercised  toward  the  workingman 
that  we  are  surprised  to  hear  a  carpen- 
ter or  a  blacksmith  whistle.  Our 
hearts  ache  for  fear  we  are  the  oppres- 
sors. The  average  reformer  delights 
in  representing  society  on  its  way 
down  hill  with  the  brake  out  of  order 
and  a  yawning  chasm  at  the  bottom. 
Orators  do  not  hesitate  to  assure  us 
that  we  are  on  the  eve  of  a  great  civil 

128 


conflict;  that  bloodshed  is  inevitable;  The  Way 
that  labor  and  capital  are  arrayed 
against  each  other  —  in  other  words, 
that  the  muscle  in  a  man's  arm  and  the 
money  in  his  pocket  are  thirsting  for 
each  other's  blood. 

In  the  midst  of  these  rumblings 
from  the  platform  and  the  press  it  is 
somewhat  refreshing  to  call  to  mind 
the  fact  that  thirty  to  forty  millions  of 
the  American  people  live  in  honest, 
self-respecting  content;  that  even  in 
East  London,  which  has  long  been  a 
synonym  for  poverty  and  suffering, 
sixty-two  per  cent,  according  to  Presi- 
dent Eliot,  "live  in  comfort  with  an 
upward  tendency."  In  1890  only  one- 
third  of  the  population  of  the  United 
States  lived  in  settlements  of  four 
thousand  or  over.  The  tendency  to 
closer  grouping  is  marked,  however, 
and  1900  will  no  doubt  show  a  decided 
increase  in  the  proportion  of  towns- 
men to  countrymen.*  This  is  perhaps 
an  evil,  but  the  main  point,  that  we 

This  proportion,  according  to  the  census,  was 
62.7  to  37.3. 

129 


The  Way    are  getting  on,  is  not  to  be  ignored. 
.o  Aitnma  ready  to  accept  the  saying 


that  "the  poor  are  getting  poorer  and 
the  rich  richer,"  and  we  should  save 
ourselves  from  the  pessimism  which 
seems  ready  to  declare  that  whatever 
is,  is  wrong. 

Not  long  ago  I  received  one  of 
those  elaborately  illustrated  and  be- 
decked New  Year  editions  of  a  paper 
published  in  a  western  town  that  I 
knew  quite  well  twenty  years  ago. 
The  town  had  no  boom;  indeed,  I  do 
not  think  it  has  grown  noticeably  in 
twenty  years.  But  as  I  looked  at  the 
cuts  of  the  ornate  modern  residences 
I  noted  that  nearly  all  of  them  were 
owned  by  men  I  had  known  as  clerks, 
porters  and  mechanics  in  their  youth. 
No  one  seemed  to  be  grinding  the 
faces  of  the  poor  in  that  town.  The 
price  of  labor  has  not  decreased  these 
latter  years,  and  honesty,  industry, 
energy  and  all  that  goes  to  make  a 
successful  man  or  woman  do  not  seem 
to  be  trodden  under  foot. 

We  are  all  aware  of  these  facts, 

130 


and  yet  we  are  also  aware  of  a  prevail-   The  Way 
ing  dissatisfaction,  a  restless   some-   1 
thing  which  in  old-fashioned  language 
used  to  be  called  envy,  but  which  in 
these  latter  days  politicians  speak  of 
respectfully  as  social  discontent. 

Women,  through  the  undue  culti- 
vation of  their  sympathies  and  the 
consequent  neglect  of  the  study  of 
cause  and  effect,  have  become  largely 
the  originators  of  philanthropic  ac- 
tivity today.  Add  to  this  the  nature 
of  their  occupation,  which  permits  of 
leisure  and  interruption,  and  we  find 
them  the  natural  leaders  of  philan- 
thropy. They  are  the  dispensers  of 
charity  as  they  are  of  hospitality. 
Starting  with  the  idea  of  making  their 
families  comfortable,  they  have  broad- 
ened with  civilization  into  the  idea  of 
making  the  world  comfortable;  and 
with  this  in  view  they  must  of  neces- 
sity study  the  discomforts  of  society. 

Now  a  morbid  contemplation  of 
the  world's  suffering  is  in  effect  al- 
most as  bad  as  total  indifference.  In- 
deed it  often  results  in  that  feeling  of 

131 


The  Way   absolute  helplessness  which  is  ready 
toAitruria    tQ  prociaim  aU  our  conditions  false 

and  to  sit  with  folded  hands  waiting 
if  not  actually  wishing  for  a  grand  up- 
heaval and  readjustment.  This  is 
latent  anarchy.  There  are  actually  in 
existence  societies  calling  themselves 
Anarchists,  who  have  reached  exactly 
this  state  of  helpless  pessimism.  I  at- 
tended one  of  their  meetings,  and 
nothing  could  have  been  farther  from 
the  accepted  idea  of  a  wild-eyed, 
bomb-throwing  anarchist  than  were 
the  mild-voiced  men  and  women  I  met 
there.  "Nothing  can  be  done,  in  our 
present  conditions/7  they  said,  "the 
social  structure  cannot  be  made  over; 
it  must  be  torn  down  and  rebuilt." 
True,  they  had  no  idea  of  taking  an 
active  part  in  tearing  down,  but  their 
very  attitude  of  expectancy  was  an  en- 
couragement to  the  countless  agita- 
tors who  were  thirsting  for  the  excite- 
ment of  destruction.  "Well,  what  else 
can  you  expect  ?  "  they  asked  when  the 
strikers  in  Chicago  were  ruthlessly  de- 
stroying property. 

132 


Now  it  seems  to  me  that  every  in-  The  Way 
dividual  who  has  in  mind  a  state  of 
society  that  seems  to  him  desirable 
and  possible,  if  he  does  not  give  us  the 
steps  by  which  in  his  opinion  that 
state  of  society  may  be  evolved  out  of 
that  which  now  exists,  should  reso- 
lutely keep  his  theories  to  himself,  or 
acknowledge  himself  what  he  really 
is:  a  dangerous  agitator,  a  promoter 
of  disease  without  the  suggestion  of  a 
remedy.  The  cherishing  of  ideals  that 
cannot  be  realized  is  harmful  to  the 
individual  because  it  diverts  him  from 
the  good  he  might  accomplish,  and  it 
is  harmful  to  society  because  there  are 
thousands  ready  to  seize  upon  his 
ideal  regardless  of  its  impossibilities 
and  to  hold  others  responsible  for  its 
non-accomplishment. 

Everyone,  then,  who  cherishes  an 
Altruria  is  bound  to  show  us  so  far 
as  in  him  lies  the  way  to  reach  it.  And 
to  do  this  he  must  not  point  us  to 
paths  that  begin  across  a  chasm  that 
we  cannot  bridge.  He  must  join  his 
paths  to  those  in  which  we  stand,  must 

133 


The  Way   in  short  tell  us  the  next  step.     Men 

:oAltruria 


where  they  ought  to  be.  Of  course,  if 
one  comes  down  to  the  bottom  fact, 
we  all  ought  to  be  as  the  angels  in 
heaven,  and  absolutely  nothing  stands 
in  the  way  of  that  consummation  but 
the  individual  himself.  The  trifling 
fact  that  a  large  proportion  of  people 
do  not  want  to  be  angels  is  calmly  set 
aside  by  many  of  these  would-be  Al- 
trurians  as  the  fault  of  the  state  and 
something  that  the  state  ought  to 
remedy:  the  criminal  is  morally  de- 
fective and  should  be  coddled  by  the 
government  because  of  his  defects; 
the  drunkard  is  the  result  of  bad  legis- 
lation and  should  be  excused  from  per- 
sonal responsibility  in  consequence; 
the  tramp  is  a  problem  to  be  legislated 
upon  instead  of  a  pest  to  be  eradi- 
cated; in  short,  crime,  vice  and  idle- 
ness are  the  results  of  bad  laws  and 
the  question  of  individual  responsi- 
bility is  not  to  be  considered.  I  am 
at  a  loss  to  know  why  the  fact  that 
under  this  same  government  individu- 

134 


als  rise  from  penury  to  wealth  and  live   The  Way 
lives   of  virtue   and   sobriety   is   not 
urged  as  a  direct  result  of  legislation 
as  well  as  the  contrary  is. 

While  gravity  remains  we  shall  fall 
down  when  we  lose  our  balance.  Nat- 
ural law  precludes  perfect  happiness. 
Such  Altruria  as  we  may  command, 
then,  will  be  at  best  limited  and  un- 
certain. But  in  view  of  our  present 
progress  we  may  look  forward  to  the 
evolution  of  a  much  better  state  of 
things.  And  as  the  first  step  in  this 
evolution  we  must  all  do  better  work 
rather  than  less  of  it.  It  is  poor  work 
rather  than  lack  of  work  that  is  hold- 
ing the  world  back,  and  the  only  rem- 
edy for  poor  workmanship  is  increase 
of  personal  responsibility  rather  than 
relief  from  it.  I  hired  a  man  last  week 
to  hoe  weeds  for  me  at  a  dollar  and  a 
half  a  day,  and  in  the  evening  after  I 
had  paid  him  I  found  he  had  hoed  out 
plants  that  cost  me  four  dollars  and  a 
half.  True,  he  was  none  the  richer, 
and  no  doubt  he  found  it  as  hard  to 
get  rid  of  a  two-dollar  plant  as  a 

135 


The  Way   worthless   weed,   but   the   experience 

:o  Altruna  to  me  some  doubts  as  to  the 


dignity  of  labor  in  the  abstract. 
Labor  is  dignified  just  in  proportion 
to  the  conscience  and  intelligence  that 
go  into  it  and  no  farther. 

Furthermore,  since  the  social  dis- 
content of  today  comes  from  ungrati- 
fied  wants,  the  question  arises  as  to 
whether  the  trouble  lies  in  the  nature 
of  the  demand  or  the  character  of  the 
supply.  No  doubt  we  shall  find  it  a 
mixture  of  the  two,  and  it  is  the  duty 
of  every  thoughtful  man  and  woman 
to  aid  in  increasing  legitimate  gratifi- 
cation and  decreasing  illegitimate  de- 
mand. To  do  this  intelligently  one 
must  study  closely  the  effect  of  certain 
possessions  and  deprivations  on  his 
own  happiness  and  that  of  others,  and 
ask  himself  seriously  whether  the  ob- 
jects for  which  thousands  are  striving 
—  for  which  he  himself  is  perhaps 
striving  —  simply  from  the  pressure 
behind  and  about  him,  are,  properly 
considered,  means  of  happiness. 

Looking  the  matter  squarely  in  the 

136 


face,  is  it  not  incomprehensible  that  a  The  Way 
sensitive,  high-minded  woman  should 
wear  an  atrociously  ugly  thing  rather 
than  make  herself  conspicuous  by  ad- 
hering to  what  she  finds  tasteful,  ar- 
tistic, healthful  and  personally  becom- 
ing? That  she  is  conspicuous  when 
she  refuses  to  comply  with  the  de- 
mands of  the  prevailing  fashion  is  an- 
other disgrace  which  women  could 
easily  remove  by  cooperation  and  mu- 
tual support.  I  insist  upon  it  that 
pockets  are  the  basis  of  man's  mental 
superiority,  and  I  defy  any  man  to 
carry  his  purse  in  his  hand  and  keep 
his  head  level  for  one  afternoon;  and 
I  here  make  my  bow  of  profoundest 
respect  to  American  men,  that  they 
have  kept  their  respect  for  American 
women  in  spite  of  our  countless  in- 
sanities that  go  by  the  name  of 
fashions. 

When  anyone  tells  us  that  the 
manufacture  of  all  these  unlovely 
things  gives  employment  to  thou- 
sands, we  can  only  shake  our  heads 
wearily  and  think  of  all  the  beautiful 

137 


The  Way   and  necessary  things  these  same  thou- 
.oAitruna    san(js   might   foe   making  to   meet   a 


wholesome  demand  —  to  make  the 
world  really  richer.  And  no  one  has 
a  right  to  evade  the  responsibility  that 
is  rightfully  his,  to  increase  by  one  the 
demand  for  what  is  neither  beautiful 
nor  useful,  thus  diverting  labor  from 
legitimate  uses. 

The  worst  of  the  follies  of  the  rich 
is  that  of  misleading  the  poor  into 
thinking  that  the  mere  display  of 
wealth  gives  happiness.  Thousands 
are  led  into  expenditures  that  bring 
nothing  but  anxiety  by  the  constant 
recital  in  the  gossiping  columns  of  the 
daily  press  of  details  of  fashionable 
folly,  which  the  participants  them- 
selves know  to  be  absolutely  without 
pleasure.  Now  I  will  leave  it  to  any- 
one who  has  once  been  poor  and  has 
passed  through  the  intermediate 
stages  to  a  competence,  or  to  wealth, 
as  a  result  of  his  own  efforts  —  was 
happiness  not  distributed  all  along  the 
way,  with  perhaps  a  more  lavish  be- 
stowal nearer  the  beginning  than 

138 


toward  the  end?    I  blame  the  would-   The  Way 

,  .  ,      .,  .   .  toAltruna 

be  reformer,  whether  rich  or  poor, 
who  attributes  the  inequalities  of  hap- 
piness to  the  inequalities  of  wealth. 
He  has  a  narrow  soul  whose  honest  lit- 
tle is  embittered  by  his  neighbor's 
affluence,  and  he  has  a  narrower  soul 
who  thinks  his  own  affluence  neces- 
sarily sweeter  than  his  neighbor's  lit- 
tle. It  would  be  a  terrible  calamity  to 
the  world  if  no  one  in  it  were  allowed 
to  become  richer  than  some  of  us  wish 
or  deserve  to  be. 

The  morally  healthy  take  pleasure 
in  the  diversity  of  rewards.  Accep- 
tance of  one's  limitations  is  the  part  of 
a  well-balanced  mind.  I  do  not  know 
which  would  be  more  humiliating  to 
such  a  mind,  to  be  weighed  down  by 
its  inferiors  or  to  know  itself  a  dead 
weight  on  its  superiors.  Success 
makes  people  happy,  not  wealth.  So 
far  as  money  indicates  the  accomplish- 
ment of  one's  purpose,  it  brings  hap- 
piness in  exact  proportion  to  the  ben- 
eficence of  that  purpose.  But  the  man 
who  makes  a  good  cart-wheel  or  de- 

139 


The  Way   velops  a  new  rose  or  paints  a  good 
.o  Aitruna   pjcture  or  \^u{\^  a  gOO(j  bridge,  tastes 

the  only  sweetness  that  brings  con- 
tent to  the  soul  —  the  sweetness  of 
giving  out  the  best  he  has  in  store. 

We  have  exalted  wealth  to  such  a 
pinnacle  in  our  country  that  the  poor 
man  is  gradually  absolving  himself 
from  all  sense  of  duty  toward  the  rich 
man,  and  when  any  human  being  loses 
his  sense  of  responsibility  to  any  other 
human  being  he  deteriorates  imme- 
diately. Sympathy  for  the  very  rich 
is  almost  unknown;  their  sorrows, 
their  joys,  their  most  sacred  and  pri- 
vate affairs  are  dragged  before  the 
public  and  gloated  over  by  those  who 
ought  to  joy  and  sorrow  with  them. 
The  conduct  of  the  public  in  this  mat- 
ter indicates  either  that  we  have  lost 
all  sense  of  personal  dignity  and  re- 
sponsibility toward  these  our  broth- 
ers, or  else  that  we  consider  wealth  a 
panacea  for  every  ill  known  to  the 
human  heart.  I  suspect  that  igno- 
rant people  take  this  latter  view,  and 
no  one  harboring  such  an  idea  is  or 

140 


ever  can  be  a  good  citizen,  a  faithful   The  Way 
employee  or  a  just  employer. 

This  unjust  estimate  of  the  value 
of  money  is  fostered  by  the  constant 
recital  of  the  doings  of  the  rich,  as  if 
the  very  fact  of  wealth  lent  an  inter- 
est to  the  detail  of  their  lives. 

Why  is  it  of  more  interest  to  the 
public  that  Mrs.  Nabob  gives  a  din- 
ner of  sixteen  courses  to  as  many 
guests,  than  that  Mrs.  O'Flaherty  en- 
tertains her  neighbors  on  corned  beef 
and  cabbage?  And  why  should  Mrs. 
O'Flaherty's  daughters,  who  work  in 
a  candy  factory,  be  led  to  think  that 
Mrs.  Nabob's  hospitality  was  better 
worth  chronicling  than  their  mother's 
modest  but  substantial  effort?  Why 
should  their  ideas  of  the  true  relation 
of  things  be  distorted  by  the  effort  of 
the  newspapers  to  make  it  appear  that 
Mrs.  Nabob's  entertainment  was  more 
extravagant  and  dazzling  than  was 
actually  the  case?  Why  should  there 
be  "covers  laid  for  sixteen"  and  why 
should  Mrs.  Nabob's  second-season 
gown  and  the  diamond  pin  her  hus- 

141 


The  Way  band  gave  her  on  their  twenty-fifth 
na  anniversary  (and  for  which  extrava- 
gance they  are  economizing  still)  be 
described  as  "an  elegant  creation  in 
violet  silk  and  crepe  de  chine,  orna- 
ments diamonds"? 

The  newspapers  tell  us  there  is  a 
demand  for  this  sort  of  nonsense. 
There  is  a  demand  for  bad  air,  judg- 
ing from  the  amount  of  it  consumed; 
and  for  sour  bread  also,  from  the 
quantity  eaten.  But  this  does  not  ex- 
cuse those  who  supply  the  demand; 
neither  can  you  and  I  excuse  ourselves 
for  being  in  any  way  instrumental  in 
furthering  this  false  estimate  of  the 
importance  of  the  doings  of  the  rich. 
If  we  are  a  part  of  the  demand  for  de- 
tails of  Mrs.  Billionaire's  divorce-suit, 
we  are  not  one  whit  higher  in  the  scale 
of  social  development  than  if  we  were 
eager  to  pry  into  our  next-door  neigh- 
bor's quarrel  with  his  wife. 

As  one  of  the  first  steps,  then, 
toward  a  possible  Altruria  we  must 
acquire  a  proper  estimate  of  the  value 
of  wealth.  Witnessing  all  these  use- 

142 


less  strivings,  these  false  ambitions,  The  Way 
the  heart-burnings  and  jealousies  that 
have  arisen  from  the  pursuit  of  money, 
it  is  not  strange  that  conscientious 
men  and  women  have  dreamed  of  do- 
ing away  with  it  all  by  doing  away 
with  the  inequalities  of  possession. 
But  as  the  possession  of  things  is  not 
the  basis  of  human  happiness,  their 
distribution  could  have  no  permanent 
effect  upon  it.  What  we  all  ought  to 
desire  is,  not  that  all  shall  share  alike, 
but  that  none  shall  want.  If  we  are  in 
a  slough  let  us  raise  our  foundations, 
not  level  our  towers.  And  in  order 
that  no  one  shall  want,  the  necessaries 
of  life  must  be  abundant  arid  cheap. 
But  you  will  find  people  the  world 
over  judging  their  wealth  by  the  price 
they  receive  for  what  they  sell  instead 
of  by  the  price  they  pay  for  what  they 
buy. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  good  work 
well  applied  is  the  surest  means  of 
adding  to  the  world's  supply  and  pre- 
venting want.  Good  houses,  well 
built  and  plenty  of  them,  without 

143 


The  Way   defective    flues,    with    windows    that 
to  Aitruria   work  without  profanity,  doors  that  do 

not  bind  —  houses  in  short  that  stand 
for  conscientious  workmanship  — 
would  do  more  to  enlist  the  coopera- 
tion of  owner  and  workman  than  bla- 
tant oratory  concerning  the  oppres- 
sion of  capital. 

The  respect  for  labor  which  grew 
out  of  conditions  half  a  century  ago  is 
rapidly  melting  away  in  the  face  of 
poor  work  and  dishonest  material. 
Honest  workmen  are  driven  to  the 
wall  by  a  horde  of  agitators  who  in- 
sist that  the  world  owes  them  a  living. 
And  until  those  workmen  come  to  the 
front  and  refuse  to  accept  the  dicta- 
torship of  their  inferiors  there  will  be 
trouble  between  labor  and  capital. 
There  is  no  man  of  whom  the  poor 
workman,  the  dishonest  mechanic  is 
so  afraid  as  of  the  man  that  does  his 
work  well;  and  under  all  his  pretense 
of  hatred  of  their  mutual  employer  is 
hidden  the  fear  of  his  skilled  competi- 
tor, who  would  soon  leave  him  behind 
in  a  fair  field. 

144 


Every  man  or  woman  who  has  The  Way 
built  a  house,  who  runs  a  ranch,  who 
owns  a  mill,  who  keeps  a  store  or  who 
manages  a  house,  knows  that  poor 
work  is  the  curse  of  society  today.  We 
move  on  but  slowly  and  painfully  be- 
cause we  are  constantly  stopping  for 
repairs.  We  thought  we  had  a  door  to 
go  in  and  out  of,  a  roof  to  keep  out 
the  rain,  but  the  door  sticks  and  delays 
us,  the  roof  leaks,  and  the  man  that 
ought  to  be  making  a  good  door  or  a 
good  roof  for  you  must  leave  his  work 
to  repair  mine. 

I  visited  last  year  in  an  inland  dis- 
trict in  the  middle  west  where  many 
things  remain  of  the  pioneer  life  that 
my  family  had  known  there  fifty  years 
ago.  In  many  houses  I  saw  chairs  of 
a  pattern  now  out  of  date.  When  I 
mentioned  them  the  owner  invariably 
said,  "Yes,  that's  one  of  Jake  Walga- 
mut's  chairs.  He  made  six  (or  eight, 
or  ten)  for  us  when  we  were  married." 
They  were  good  chairs.  Jake  Walga- 
mut  is  dead  but  his  work  stands.  In 
forty  years  no  one  has  had  to  leave 

145 


The  Way  his  own  work  to  remedy  the  defects 
ria  in  Jake's.  There  are  six  more  chairs 
in  many  households  today  because 
Jake  Walgamut  lived.  And  they 
seemed  to  think  more  kindly  of  him  in 
that  vicinity  than  they  did  of  Debs. 
As  for  myself  I  felt  like  hunting  up  his 
grave  and  erecting  a  monument  to  the 
early  Altrurian:  "The  safety  of  the 
nation,  the  man  who  did  his  work 
well." 

The  kingdom  of  heaven  cometh 
not  by  legislation.  If  every  clerk  and 
stenographer  and  teacher  and  dress- 
maker and  lawyer  and  housekeeper 
and  plumber  and  statesman  and  car- 
penter would  spend  one-half  the  time 
rigidly  examining  himself  to  see  that 
he  is  the  very  best  possible  man  or 
woman,  that  he  spends  in  traducing 
the  government  and  society  because 
his  reward  is  not  greater  than  his  de- 
sert, Utopia  would  be  upon  us  speedily 
and  surely.  We  should  hear  more  of 
work  and  less  of  wages. 

Every  individual,  then,  who  is 
making  discoveries  in  science,  acquir- 

146 


ing  useful  or  artistic  skill  or  promot-   The  Way 
ing  conscience,  is  working  toward  Al- 
truria.    It  is  slow.    Evolution  is  neces- 
sarily  slow.      But    revolution    is    far 
slower. 

We  should  show  infinite  patience 
with  the  children,  and  uncompromis- 
ing justice  with  the  adult.  With 
adult  wrongdoers,  not  persecution  nor 
cruelty,  but  justice.  Every  tear  of 
maudlin  sentimentalism  shed  over  a 
deliberate  criminal  turns  to  a  stone  in 
the  pathway  of  the  child  you  are  try- 
ing to  teach  to  do  right.  The  moment 
we  begin  to  hold  circumstances  re- 
sponsible for  individual  shortcomings 
we  destroy  the  first  principle  of  prog- 
ress, we  license  all  that  is  evil. 

Every  society  calling  itself  altru- 
istic that  withdraws  itself  from  the 
world  to  exemplify  its  principles  ac- 
knowledges itself  unable  to  solve  the 
problem.  But  any  society  that  finds 
aid  in  the  cooperation  of  those  of  simi- 
lar tastes  and  opinions  is  a  legitimate 
factor  in  evolution,  so  long  as  it  does 
not  pronounce  itself  a  solution,  merely 

147 


The  Way  an  aid.  Voluntary  cooperation  will 
grow  with  civilization  and  involun- 
tary cooperation  will  decrease.  The 
fewer  obligations  the  individual  is 
born  into  the  higher  the  development 
of  personality.  The  more  obligations 
we  assume  voluntarily  the  greater  our 
individual  dignity,  and  the  dignity  of 
the  state  will  always  depend  on  that  of 
the  individual.  All  permanent  good 
to  the  state  must  grow  out  of  the  de- 
velopment of  individuality,  not  out  of 
its  suppression.  And  personal  respon- 
sibility will  always  remain  the  most 
potent  factor  in  the  development  of 
the  individual. 

We  witness  today  the  strange 
spectacle  of  the  most  conscientious 
among  us  joining  hands  with  the  most 
conscienceless,  in  Altrurian  projects: 
on  the  one  hand,  the  men  and  women 
who,  seeing  others  deprived  of  com- 
forts and  luxuries,  are  eager  to  share 
with  them;  and,  on  the  other,  those 
who,  failing  by  improvidence  to  accu- 
mulate, are  eager  to  be  parasites  on 
the  industrious.  These  two  classes, 

148 


widely  different  as  they  are,  occupy  The  Way 
common  ground  today.  And  even  if 
they  were  equal  in  numbers  the  un- 
worthy would  prevail  in  all  their  en- 
terprises, because  improvidence  can 
undo  faster  than  providence  can  do. 

I  would  not  be  understood  as  un- 
derestimating the  debt  that  progress 
owes  to  the  enthusiast,  the  fanatic,  the 
"crank"  if  you  will;  but  I  would  have 
the  world  recognize  that  enthusiasm 
and  good-will  toward  men  are  not 
synonymous  with  economic  wisdom, 
and  that  the  champion  of  the  middle 
ground,  who  is  always  unknown  to 
fame,  is  generally  unknown  to  folly  as 
well.  To  him  is  entrusted  the  carry- 
ing out  of  all  schemes  for  the  benefit 
of  society,  and  upon  him  is  heaped  all 
the  contumely  of  those  who  are  rush- 
ing forward  and  of  those  who  are  pull- 
ing back. 

All  things  are  not  good  that  have 
good  for  their  motto.  And  no  matter 
how  commendable  their  motives  may 
be,  I  believe  that  the  influence  of  those 
who  are  teaching  the  people  to  look  to 

149 


The  Way  the  government  for  a  solution  of  all 
their  ills  is  distinctly  and  increasingly 
harmful. 

We  have  as  yet  no  proof  whatever 
that  if  the  rich  were  poorer  the  poor 
would  be  richer,  but  we  have  unmis- 
takable evidence  that  the  effort  of 
rich  and  poor  alike  to  become  richer 
has  kept  many  of  the  poor  from  be- 
coming poorer. 

Every  man  or  woman,  then,  who 
has  the  intelligence  to  discriminate  be- 
tween what  is  real  and  what  is  false  in 
the  struggle  for  happiness,  who  has 
the  self-respect  to  cut  off  false  de- 
mands in  his  own  case  and  encourage 
others  to  do  so,  and  who  furnishes  a 
conscientious  supply  in  such  line  as  it 
is  given  him  to  work  for  his  fellow- 
men —  has  found  the  way  to  Altruria 
and  is  traveling  therein. 

If  I  were  to  tell  you  what  seem  to 
me  false  demands  we  might  differ. 
There  are  many  who  conscientiously 
believe  in  seven-yard  skirts,  in  ten- 
cent  cigars,  in  docked  horses,  in  gam- 
bling for  vinaigrettes  and  paper- 
ISO 


knives,  in  a  liveried  "hired  man,"  in  The  Way 
teas  of  many  colors,  in  silk  hats,  in  no 
pockets,  in  middle-men,  in  formal 
calls,  in  champagne,  in  tight  dresses 
(not  tight  but  snug),  in  tall  steeples 
and  high  heels.  But  however  we  may 
differ  as  to  these  things,  I  think  we 
shall  all  sweetly  agree  that  we  like 
each  other  better,  with  all  our  follies, 
because  of  the  freedom  that  enables  us 
to  be  foolish  as  well  as  wise;  and  that 
when  the  day  of  sweet  simplicity  and 
frankness  comes,  the  day  of  brother- 
hood of  man  and  sisterhood  of  women, 
we  shall  enjoy  that  better  by  reason  of 
its  freedom  —  because  it  came  by  our 
own  act  and  not  by  Act  of  Congress. 


151 


A  MATTER  OF  CONSCIENCE 

Possibly  every  age,  every  state  of 
society,  bemoans  its  own  moral  decay; 
just  as  school  trustees  since  the  begin- 
ning of  time  have  alleged  the  unusual 
badness  of  boys  in  their  district. 
Strangely  enough,  we  do  not  find 
along  with  this  any  deep-seated  con- 
viction that  the  world  is  growing 
worse.  Some  of  us,  alas,  are  old 
enough  to  have  to  fight  a  little  against 
the  "when  I  was  young"  spirit,  know- 
ing that  most  things  are  brighter 
when  one  is  young  and  that  we  prob- 
ably knew  less  of  evil  then,  as  we  knew 
less  of  everything;  but  even  these, 
when  we  really  think,  recognize  the 
general  betterment  of  conditions,  a 
betterment  which  assuredly  does  not 
indicate  any  rapid  moral  decay.  Pub- 
lic institutions  everywhere  are  better; 
the  insane,  the  criminal,  the  pauper  re- 
ceive more  intelligent  care;  man  is 

152 


thinking  of  his  brother  man,  and  if  A  Matter  of 
morality  has  shifted  its  ground  a  lit- 
tle, it  is,  we  have  every  reason  to  be- 
lieve, only  a  part  of  the  lateral  motion 
which  accompanies  progress.  That 
the  ship's  furniture  slides  about  and 
changes  relations  but  indicates  that 
the  vessel  is  making  its  way  through 
a  heavy  sea,  not  that  it  is  sinking. 

If,  therefore,  we  all  agree,  which  is 
not  likely,  that  there  seems  to  be  a  lack 
of  conscience  among  us  today,  we  are 
not  necessarily  enrolling  ourselves 
among  pessimists,  but  are  rather  in 
the  attitude  of  those  who  note  the 
changing  forms  of  evil  that  they  may 
be  the  better  prepared  to  defeat  it. 

Conscience,  as  I  understand  it,  is 
the  impulse  to  do  right  because  it  is 
right,  regardless  of  personal  ends,  and 
has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the 
ability  to  distinguish  between  right 
and  wrong.  A  very  sensitive  con- 
science may  coexist  with,  a  faulty 
judgment  and  lead  the  possessor  con- 
scientiously to  do  wrong.  Hence  all 
those  "well-meaning"  people  the  cor- 

153 


A  Matter  of  rection  of  whose  blunders  make  up  a 
large  proportion  of  the  world's  work. 

Amid  the  increasing  complexities 
of  life  it  is  not  always  easy  to  distin- 
guish right  from  wrong.  Those  who 
believe  that  human  nature  has  been 
fitted  out  with  an  unerring  instinct  — 
a  moral  scent  rather  than  a  moral 
sense  —  seem  to  me  largely  respon- 
sible for  the  ethical  bewilderment  of 
large  numbers  of  people  not  necessar- 
ily nor  vitally  immoral. 

I  remember  even  yet  with  amaze- 
ment the  warning  of  my  grandfather 
when  I  was  about  to  leave  home  on  a 
very  modest  quest  of  better  educa- 
tional advantage:  "Be  careful  that 
you  do  not  learn  too  much  to  be 
good/'  he  said,  from  the  standpoint  of 
that  theology  which  saw  no  relation 
between  enlightenment  and  morals; 
which  divided  man  into  mental,  moral 
and  physical,  mind,  soul  and  body,  and 
essayed  to  save  the  soul  even  if  one 
lost  his  mind  in  the  effort.  If  he  looks 
down  from  the  "gold  bar  of  heaven" 
today,  my  venerable  progenitor  must 

154 


wonder  a  little  that  in  spite  of  his  fears   A  Matter  of 
I    have    not    in    all    these    years    yet 
learned  enough  to  be  good. 

All  education  may  not  tend  toward 
conscientiousness,  may  not  increase 
the  impulse  to  do  right,  but  all  proper 
education  aids  us  in  the  discovery  of 
what  is  right.  And  just  here,  I  think, 
the  confusion  arises  in  the  minds  of 
those  who  expect,  and  are  disap- 
pointed, that  a  man's  morality  shall 
increase  with  his  knowledge.  That  it 
does  not  is  in  no  wise  the  fault  of  his 
knowledge.  To  say  that  his  immoral- 
ity is  the  result  of  his  information  is 
about  as  logical  as  to  say  that  his  in- 
formation is  the  result  of  his  im- 
morality. A  navigator  needs  all  the 
information  he  can  get  to  steer  his 
ship  clear  of  the  rocks  in  a  dangerous 
channel,  but  all  the  information  in  the 
world  will  not  keep  his  vessel  from  go- 
ing to  pieces  if  he  insists  upon  steer- 
ing it  wrong  in  spite  of  his  knowledge. 
Neither  will  the  best  intentions  in  the 
world  compensate  for  ignorance  of 
where  the  danger  lies. 

155 


A  Matter  of  It  is  one  thing  to  know  what  is 
right  and  quite  another  thing  to  want 
to  do  it. 

That  large  numbers  of  the  most 
conscientious  people  muddle  their 
own  lives  and  the  lives  of  others,  cer- 
tainly ought  to  convince  us  that  the 
moral  sense  cannot  be  left  to  itself; 
that  it  needs  the  most  thorough  en- 
lightenment and  the  most  careful 
training.  And  yet  scarcely  a  week 
passes  that  some  presumably  intelli- 
gent parent  does  not  say  to  me  or  in 
my  hearing:  "Well,  I  try  not  to  worry 
about  the  children's  naughtiness  —  I 
have  always  tried  to  do  right,  and  my 
wife  (or  my  husband)  is  certainly 
good  and  I  think  the  children  will  turn 
out  all  right/' 

To  know  right  from  wrong  is  in- 
telligence; to  want  to  know  what  is 
right  that  one  may  do  it  is  conscien- 
tiousness; to  do  right  is  morality. 

We  have  a  comfortable  way  of  as- 
serting that  it  is  easy  enough  to  know 
what  is  right  but  we  really  do  not  find 
it  so.  In  simple  states  of  society  such 

156 


as  confront  the  pioneer,  where  indus-  A  Matter  of 
try  means  but  one  thing  and  is  re- 
quired of  all  who  have  bodily  health, 
the  individual  encounters  fewer  per- 
plexities than  wait  upon  him  in  more 
complex  society.  As  the  plot  thickens 
and  problems  of  distribution,  intangi- 
ble industries,  middle-men,  counsel- 
ors, etc.,  increase,  more  intricate 
questions  present  themselves.  Where 
large  numbers  of  the  population  either 
honestly  or  dishonestly  "make  their 
living  by  their  wits"  there  are  count- 
less pitfalls  for  the  unwise  and  the  un- 
wary. We  will  all  admit,  I  think,  that 
more  difficult  questions  of  morals  pre- 
sent themselves  to  the  agent  than  to 
the  blacksmith,  and  more  delicate 
problems  confront  the  attorney  than 
the  agent.  Stupid  conscientiousness 
is  not  sufficient  for  these  men;  a 
trained  and  sensitive  conscience  is  de- 
manded. 

Business,  with  its  perpetual  ten- 
dency toward  speculation  involving 
others  besides  the  speculator,  and  its 
unblushing  desire  to  get  something 

157 


A  Matter  of  for  nothing  through  the  ignorance  or 
necessity  of  others,  forever  trembles 
on  the  verge  of  gambling  and  theft, 
and  those  who  would  keep  their  hands 
clean  must  have  clear  heads  and  prin- 
ciples well-defined  and  ready  for  use. 
Even  thus  armed  we  are  full  of  doubt. 
Ruskin  may  have  had  us  in  view  when 
he  said,  "People  of  moderate  means 
and  average  powers  of  mind  would  do 
far  more  real  good  by  merely  carrying 
out  stern  principles  of  justice  and  hon- 
esty in  common  matters  of  trade,  than 
by  the  most  ingenious  schemes  of  ex- 
tended philanthropy  or  vociferous 
declarations  of  theological  doctrine." 
But  the  tendency  of  education  dur- 
ing these  latter  years  has  been  away 
from  such  austerity;  it  has  been  a 
search  for  the  green  pastures  and  still 
waters  of  learning,  a  disposition  to 
hide  the  drudgery  behind  floral  dec- 
orations. Our  children  dance  into 
the  kindergarten  and  complete  their 
higher  education  with  a  "hop."  Now 
schools  are  always  the  outgrowth  of 
homes.  Teachers  are  hired  by  par- 

158 


ents,  not  vice  versa,  as  much  that  is  A  Matter  of 
written  and  spoken  would  indicate. 
And  therefore  if  much  of  the  moral 
training  both  at  home  and  at  school 
consists  of  mild  admonition  "to  be 
good,  kind  to  everybody  and  generally 
sweet  and  lovely,"  without  any  ex- 
plicit instructions  as  to  what  is  right, 
we  must  hold  the  home  responsible  for 
the  moral  invertebrate  which  results. 
Every  teacher  knows  that  a  child  who 
brings  from  home  a  knowledge  of 
what  honor  is  and  a  love  of  it,  a  knowl- 
edge of  what  dishonor  means  and  a 
hatred  of  it,  cannot  be  corrupted  at 
school.  But  a  child  who  does  not 
bring  this  from  home  rarely  acquires 
it  in  the  stilted,  conventional  and 
crowded  life  of  the  schoolroom.  If 
we  will  herd  our  young  in  fifties  and 
sixties  we  must  take  the  consequences. 
Time  was  when  the  church  was 
something  more  than  a  skilful  combi- 
nation of  business  corporation,  lecture 
bureau  and  social  organization;  when 
religion  laid  no  claim  to  ease  and  gay- 
ety  and  held  its  devotees  to  stern  rules 

159 


A  Matter  of  of  conduct  —  not  always  beneficent, 
perhaps,  but  chastening.  We  smile 
now  at  the  faith  which  doubted  the 
morality  of  all  pleasant  things,  but 
perhaps  it  had  its  advantages;  cer- 
tainly we  are  tasting  the  bitter  fruits 
today  in  many  places  of  a  religion 
which  refuses  to  cope  with  unpleasant 
things  and  drapes  the  sharp  angles  of 
its  creed  behind  tinseled  generalities. 
The  church  and  the  vaudeville  are  not 
far  apart  today  in  their  supreme  and 
acknowledged  effort  to  "make  them- 
selves attractive  to  the  young  people." 
As  a  matter  of  fact  doing  right  is 
not  an  easy,  drifting,  effortless  thing. 
Natural  depravity  is  not  more  unrea- 
sonable as  an  article  of  faith  than  nat- 
ural perfection,  and  in  our  rebellion 
against  the  asceticism  of  teachings 
which  cast  a  doubt  upon  every  natural 
inclination,  we  must  not  fall  into  the 
error  of  trusting  nature  implicitly. 
The  member  of  a  church  whose  creed 
is  carefully  concealed  from  the  young 
as  something  in  no  way  related  to 
morals,  who  considers  doctrinal  ser- 

160 


mons  obsolete,  has  no  right  to  wonder  A  Matter  of 
that  laws  are  so  calmly  disregarded 
and  sincerity  in  business  so  rare.  The 
one  thing  that  has  made  religions 
valuable  has  been  sincerity.  Looking 
back  over  their  long  list  of  confessed 
blunders,  it  certainly  has  not  been 
their  verity.  And  in  exchanging  the 
austere  dignity  of  the  sincere  though 
puritanical  clergy  of  half  a  century 
ago  for  the  tactful  "promoter"  of  the 
modern  pulpit,  the  moral  tone  of 
orthodoxy  has  certainly  not  been 
strengthened. 

The  reason  of  this  defection  is  not 
far  to  seek.  The  advance  of  science 
and  the  dissemination  of  knowledge 
have  weakened  the  hold  of  abstract 
theology  on  the  pulpit.  Fear  no 
longer  drives  men  into  religion.  The 
church  must  make  a  bid  for  the  inter- 
est of  the  people.  The  growth  of 
cities  has  created  a  demand  for  social 
centers,  and  the  church  availing  itself 
of  this,  has  become  largely  social. 
The  commercial  spirit  which  pervades 
all  society  has  thus  taken  possession 

161 


A  Matter  of  of  religion,  and  while  many  good  peo- 
ple work  in  its  cause  from  the  best  and 
purest  of  motives,  the  work  that  they 
do  is  entirely  remote  from  the  uplift- 
ing of  society,  being  simply  the  busi- 
ness enterprise  of  maintaining  and  ad- 
vancing the  organization.  The  money 
necessary  for  this  purpose  is  no  longer 
obtained  by  grinding  the  faces  of  the 
poor  but  very  often  by  patting  the 
backs  of  the  rich  —  which  is  certainly 
an  advance  in  kindliness  if  not  in 
morality. 

Indeed,  looking  society  over  today, 
we  are  constrained  to  admit  that 
many  of  the  sterner  virtues  have  been 
sacrificed  to  kindliness  and  brotherly 
love.  There  has  been  a  distinct  gain 
these  latter  years  in  tenderness  of 
heart  and  a  perceptible  loss  in  austere 
virtue.  In  our  anxiety  to  become  our 
brother's  keeper  we  have  perhaps  neg- 
lected ourselves  a  little,  and  it  may 
not  be  amiss  to  heed  what  Ruskin  says 
and  devote  ourselves  individually  to 
carrying  out  "stern  principles  of  jus- 
tice" and  let  the  heathen  rage. 

162 


Of  course  you  will  remind  me  that  A  Matter  of 
morality  is  altogether  and  distinctly 
social;  that  if  you  or  I  wandered  alone 
on  the  earth,  we  should  need  no 
morals,  since  nature  would  suffice. 
But  the  fact  that  we  are  chiefly  con- 
cerned with  our  duty  to  our  fellows, 
in  no  way  decides  for  us  what  that 
duty  is,  yet  certainly  at  its  foundation 
lies  a  strict  attention  to  the  individual 
personally  committed  to  our  care, 
namely  ourselves.  What  the  social 
nature  of  morality  does  prove  I  think 
is  its  absolute  lack  of  dependence  upon 
any  system  of  theology,  dogma,  de- 
monology  or  other  form  of  abstract  or 
speculative  reasoning.  It  is  our  duty 
to  man :  a  purely  human  proposition. 
If  any  nature  finds  aid  in  lashing  itself 
to  the  discharge  of  this  duty,  or  in  dis- 
covering what  it  is,  through  any  sys- 
tem of  speculation  concerning  spirits 
or  immortality  or  any  peculiar  theory 
of  creation  or  any  hypothesis  concern- 
ing the  unknowable,  he  has  every  right 
to  make  use  of  such  aid.  But  my  duty 
to  my  fellowman  has  no  more  to  do 

163 


A  Matter  of  with  the  number  of  years  I  am  to  live 
after  I  leave  this  earth  than  it  has  to 
do  with  the  number  of  years  I  am  to 
live  on  this  earth.  If  I  am  to  die  next 
year  the  fact  could  not  properly  affect 
my  political  opinions,  and  if  I  am  to 
live  ten  billion  years  I  must  pay  my 
note  at  the  bank  when  it  is  due,  or  at 
least  give  it  "prompt  attention." 

To  attach  to  the  problem  of  rind- 
ing out  and  discharging  our  social 
obligations,  which  constitutes  the 
whole  of  morality,  a  vast  and  unsolv- 
able  mass  of  theory  and  belief  is  con- 
fusing in  the  extreme;  and  there  is  no 
question  in  my  mind  that  the  teach- 
ings of  Christ,  which  are  simple  and 
easily  understood,  have  been  often 
neglected  or  discarded  by  reason  of 
the  mystery  and  miracle  thereto  at- 
tached. Already  these  same  teachings 
are  coming  around  to  us  by  way  of 
political  science  and  meeting  ready  ac- 
ceptance under  new  conditions  and 
unhampered  by  theology. 

To  say  to  a  child,  "You  must  do 
right  because  it  is  the  will  of  God," 

164 


arouses  instant  and  unending  discus-  A  Matter  of 
sion:  How  do  you  know  it  is  the  will 
of  God?  Is  the  message  genuine? 
Have  you  interpreted  it  correctly?  — 
and  a  thousand  other  questions  ensue. 
Now,  right  is  not  right  because  it  is 
the  will  of  God,  but  it  is  the  will  of 
God  because  it  is  right.  And  we  must 
confine  ourselves  to  finding  out  what 
is  best  for  our  fellowmen  by  the 
strait  and  narrow  path  of  human 
judgment  and  not  by  the  devious  ways 
of  theology,  knowing  that  when  we 
have  found  it  it  will  be  something  far 
removed  from  miraculous,  some  ev- 
ery-day  matter  of  honesty  and  square- 
dealing  and  self-sacrifice,  and  that  in 
doing  it,  that  day  and  every  day,  we 
shall  discharge  our  whole  duty  to 
God. 

If  any  of  us  find  aid  in  listening  to 
an  organ,  or  counting  beads,  or  wear- 
ing a  uniform,  or  in  the  smoke  of  aro- 
matic gums,  or  in  hearing  a  certain 
man  speak  every  week  from  a  plat- 
form, or  in  reading  a  particular  book, 
or  in  partaking  of  bread  and  wine,  or 

165 


A  Matter  of  being  immersed  in  water,  or  in  any 
form  of  symbolism  whatever, —  let  us 
lay  hold  of  these  things  and  avail  our- 
selves of  their  help.  But  let  us  not  be 
guilty  of  saying  that  the  man  who 
does  not  need  their  aid  is  a  sinner;  let 
us  not  confuse  the  moral  sense  of  the 
young  by  touching  with  mystery  that 
which  we  should  make  plain,  lest  when 
the  foundation  gives  way,  when  his  in- 
tellect rebels  against  miracle  and  mys- 
ticism, such  character  as  we  have  tried 
to  build  upon  it  give  way  also. 

It  is  not  a  difficult  thing  to  show  a 
child  that  the  security  and  happiness 
of  his  little  world  is  endangered  by 
telling  lies,  that  absolute  confidence  in 
his  spoken  word  makes  life  easier  for 
all  about  him  and  preserves  his  own 
honor  and  peace.  Indeed,  it  is  far 
easier  to  give  a  child  a  reasonable  rea- 
son for  moral  acts  than  to  give  him  a 
reason  for  the  faith  that  is  in  us,  and 
explain  to  him  the  relation  of  faith 
and  works.  The  parent  who  begins 
his  crusade  against  untruthfulness  by 
saying,  "God  doesn't  love  little  boys 

166 


and  girls  who  tell  stories/'  is  a  mental  A  Matter  of 
shirk  and  deserves  to  be  asked, 
"Why?"  as  he  probably  will  be.  Next 
week  you  will  hear  him  tell  the  same 
child  that  "God  loves  everybody," 
that  "He  so  loved  the  world,"  etc. 
Small  wonder  that  few  of  us  are  clear 
as  to  what  is  right,  escaping  as  we 
have  from  such  teaching  with  a  child- 
ish idea  that  morals  are  in  some  inex- 
plicable way  mixed  up  with  Jonah  and 
the  fact  of  angels  having  feathered 
wings. 

Morality  is  largely  a  question  of 
ways  and  means  rather  than  of  emo- 
tion, and  the  fact  that  it  has  been  so 
hampered  by  unreality  on  its  practical 
side,  from  the  disposition  to  deify  the 
reformer  and  invest  him  with  super- 
natural power  and  authority,  and  so 
exalted  on  the  emotional  side  by  the 
consequent  cultivation  of  faith  and 
feeling  rather  than  judgment  and  rea- 
son, may  account  to  some  extent  for 
the  fact  mentioned  heretofore:  that 
kindliness  and  brotherly  love  of  a 
somewhat  gelatinous  sort  seem  to 

167 


A  Matter  of  have  increased  among  us  to  the  detri- 
ment of  justice,  honesty,  candor  and 
other  sterner  virtues. 

Love  is  a  very  pretty  but  very  elu- 
sive motive,  and  yet  we  hear  a  great 
deal  of  it  as  an  ethical  force.  Very 
few  parents  seem  to  have  any  definite 
plan  for  the  moral  instruction  of  their 
children  beyond  a  weekly  lesson  leaf 
which  may  treat  of  the  architecture  of 
the  Tabernacle  or  the  climate  of  Syria, 
or  if  perchance  it  forbids  stealing  fails 
to  tell  some  prevalent  form  of  that 
vice  masquerading  under  more  agree- 
able names.  Being  unable  to  settle 
the  question  of  immortality,  a  good 
many  parents  feel  justified  in  shirking 
plain  questions  of  every-day  honesty. 

Every  teacher  will  give  you  tes- 
timony as  to  the  appalling  lack  of 
moral  instruction  —  not  general  ad- 
monition, not  failure  to  inculcate  ami- 
ability and  generosity  —  but  lack  of 
parental  instruction  on  the  simplest 
questions  of  practical  morals  among 
children  old  enough  to  understand 
and  appreciate  the  reasons  why  one 

168 


line  of  conduct  is  right  and  another  A  Matter  of 
wrong. 

I  well  remember  an  early  experi- 
ence in  the  schoolroom  which  opened 
my  eyes  to  this  state  of  affairs.  I  was 
confronted  by  what  every  teacher  has 
met:  an  excuse  written  for  one  boy 
by  another.  My  pupils  were  in  their 
teens  and  the  children  of  average 
homes,  and  yet  I  found  them  alarm- 
ingly ignorant  and  indifferent  as  to 
the  sacredness  of  a  signature.  They 
knew  of  forgery,  yes;  it  was  wrong, 
because  you  got  money,  generally  a 
large  sum,  which  seemed  to  make  it 
worse  in  their  eyes.  But  it  was  evi- 
dent that  very  few  of  them  had  ever 
received  the  slightest  reasonable  ex- 
planation of  why  it  was  wrong  to  use 
another's  signature  or  had  been  im- 
pressed in  any  lasting  way  with  the 
sacredness  of  a  name,  except  as  it 
stood  for  financial  gain;  in  other 
words,  as  they  had  read  of  it  in  the 
newspapers. 

Children,  if  they  have  any  sense  at 
all,  have  usually  a  very  plain  unvar- 

169 


A  Matter  of  nished  kind  of  common  sense.  We 
who  are  older  may  indulge  in  imagin- 
ative flights  and  emotional  orgies  and 
deceive  ourselves  and  each  other  with 
half  truths;  but  to  them  in  their  help- 
lessness we  owe  the  best  we  have  ac- 
quired, and  we  owe  it  to  them  unadul- 
terated with  speculation  and  uncol- 
ored  with  fancy.  What  right  has  a 
grown  man  or  woman  to  look  into  a 
little  child's  clear  eyes  when  asked  a 
question  he  cannot  answer  and  tangle 
the  struggling  intelligence  in  the  web 
of  his  ignorance  ?  If  you  do  not  know, 
why  not  tell  him  so?  If  you  doubt, 
why  not  tell  him  that?  And  if  you 
only  believe  and  do  not  know  why, 
why  not  tell  him  that  also?  He  may 
not  be  able  to  digest  the  truth,  but  at 
least  you  will  not  have  poisoned  him 
with  a  lie. 

Morals  would  be  easier  to  teach  if 
parents  were  not  concerned  to  recon- 
cile them  with  their  religion,  or  more 
properly,  their  theology.  And  while 
society  needs  all  the  brotherly  love  it 
can  acquire,  it  needs  along  with  it 

170 


something  which  will  keep  that  same   A  Matter  of 
brotherly    love    working    quietly    in 
harness. 

The  conscience  of  the  human  being 
may  be  systematically  trained,  and 
trained  to  nice  distinctions  of  good 
and  evil,  but  it  cannot  be  done  through 
the  emotions  nor  by  faith  in  the  super- 
natural. It  will  mean  a  patient  study 
of  the  needs  of  man  and  a  careful  disci- 
pline of  self  in  supplying  those  needs; 
a  just  and  impartial  estimate  of  the 
individual  rather  than  a  wide,  envelop- 
ing love  of  all  men  (who  are  certainly 
not  equally  lovable).  And  it  must  be 
done  chiefly  by  parents,  but  not  by 
parents  who  have  hazy  ideas  of  right 
and  wrong  themselves,  and  who  desire 
their  children  above  all  things  to  "get 
on  in  the  world,"  as  the  world  under- 
stands "getting  on." 

Decay  in  the  austere  virtues  of  in- 
dustry, economy,  justice  and  honesty 
has  increased  the  demand  for  philan- 
thropy, and  human  nature's  ready  re- 
sponse to  this  demand  demonstrates 
the  change,  rather  than  the  loss,  of 

171 


A  Matter  of  moral  impulse.  But  in  turn  the 
growth  of  philanthropy  lessens  the 
necessity  for  individual  responsibility 
and  requires  careful  adjustment,  and 
great  intelligence  must  be  brought  to 
its  exercise. 

But  having  studied  the  needs  of 
humanity  as  wisely  and  thoroughly  as 
may  be,  and  instructed  our  children 
and  youth  concerning  them,  we  all 
recognize  the  necessity  for  will  in  ap- 
plying this  knowledge  to  actual  life. 
Without  heeding  the  doleful  and  irre- 
sponsible wails  of  the  thoughtless  con- 
cerning the  downward  tendency  of 
man,  we  may  safely  lend  an  ear  to 
the  thoughtful  and  intelligent  critic. 
Brunetiere  says,  in  speaking  of  needed 
reforms  in  the  moral  attitude  of 
art: 

Will  would  be  needed,  and  unhappily  we 
live  in  a  time  when  —  to  give  meaning  to  an 
old  distinction  that  might  be  thought  very 
subtle  and  very  vain,  and  which  profound 
philosophers  have  denied  —  the  failure,  or, 
rather,  the  enfeeblement  of  the  will  has  per- 
haps no  equal  except  in  the  increasing  inten- 
sity of  the  desires. 

172 


Those  of  us  who  see  a  measure  of  A  Matter  of 
truth  in  the  French  critic's  statement 
may  ask  ourselves  whether  this  state 
of  affairs  is  not  the  result  of  man's 
over-gregariousness,  his  being  a  some- 
what too  "social  animal"?  Are  we 
not  disposed  to  advocate  our  reforms 
before  we  practice  them,  and  feel  ag- 
grieved that  the  "procession"  does  not 
fall  in  with  us  ?  Do  we  not  weakly  de- 
fend our  weaknesses  by  saying  "but 
everybody  does  so  nowadays,"  even 
though  we  know  no  reform  was  ever 
inaugurated  by  doing  as  everybody 
does?  Do  we  not,  in  short,  all  lack  the 
strength  of  will  to  be  peculiar?  I  may 
be  overstating  it,  but  I  venture  to  say 
that  nine-tenths  of  us  are  at  bottom 
dissatisfied  with  the  plan  of  our  daily 
lives  in  matters  entirely  within  our 
control.  And  what  do  we  do  about  it  ? 
Calmly  set  about  conforming  to  our 
own  ideas?  Oh,  no.  We  fret  and 
fume  because  society  does 'not  agree 
with  us  and  thus  enable  us  to  do  the 
popular  thing;  we  tell  everybody 
what  we  think  and  demonstrate  on 

173 


A  Matter  of  every  occasion  (in  words)  how  su- 
perior our  own  system  is;  sometimes 
we  hold  conventions  and  pass  reso- 
lutions and,  having  rent  the  air  and 
"held  long  argument,"  we  become 
hopeless  and  pessimistic  and  say  there 
is  no  doing  anything  at  all  with  people 
—  better  fall  in  with  the  current  — 
and,  having  said  this,  we  ignomini- 
ously  melt  into  the  average. 

Now  in  all  probability  it  was  never 
given  to  you  or  to  me  to  do  anything 
with  society  or  the  world  at  large,  be- 
yond the  influence  which  a  rigid  ad- 
herence to  the  principles  which  we 
have  wrought  out  for  ourselves  would 
accomplish,  and  those  of  us  who  are 
thinking  unpleasant  things  of  the  pro- 
cession because  it  does  not  follow  our 
route  should  reflect  that  the  street  we 
prefer  is  thus  left  free  and  open  for  us 
to  proceed  in,  and  that  possibly,  just 
possibly,  a  few  tried  friends  may  join 
us  and  we  may  thus  form  the  nucleus 
of  a  pageant,  the  tramp  of  whose 
march  shall  fill  the  world  with  noble 
delight. 

174 


Whether  we  mourn  the  fact  or  not,  A  Matter  of 
I  think  we  must  all  acknowledge  that 
fear  as  a  motive  for  conduct  has  dis- 
appeared or  is  disappearing  from  so- 
ciety. With  its  going  much  that  was 
cruel  and  austere  has  gone  and  much 
that  is  genial  and  human,  warm  and 
solacing  has  come.  The  joy  of  life  has 
increased.  But  while  we  perhaps  all 
felicitate  ourselves  upon  this  we  must 
remember  that  fear  has  sometimes  a 
tonic  effect  upon  the  will.  The  man 
who  believes  that  by  certain  tempo- 
rary afflictions  which  endure  but  for  a 
day,  he  may  save  or  help  to  save  his 
children  from  the  pains  of  hell  forever, 
will  show  Spartan  firmness  in  admin- 
istering those  temporary  afflictions  or 
deprivations.  But  his  harsh  belief  is 
not  the  only  motive  from  which  firm- 
ness of  will  may  emanate;  the  fact 
that  we  involuntarily  say  "Spartan 
firmness"  is  sufficient  proof  of  this. 
But  when  society  is  changing  from 
one  set  of  motives  to  another,  there  is 
likely  to  be  a  relaxing  of  one  before  a 
firm  hold  is  established  elsewhere. 

175 


A  Matter  of  We  are  tasting  today  the  increased 
pleasure  of  life  and  a  broadening  love 
of  man.  The  danger  before  us  lies  in 
the  tendency  to  think  all  things  must 
be  pleasant  or  we  will  have  none  of 
them,  to  glorify  emotion  above  reason, 
the  esthetic  above  the  just. 

Most  of  us  were  nourished  morally 
on  the  traditions  of  the  theological  re- 
gime. If  we  have  ceased  to  believe  in 
these,  we  must  not  expect  to  cultivate 
morals  either  by  sham  or  neglect  but 
by  applying  the  truth,  as  it  now  pre- 
sents itself  to  us,  to  life  with  the  same 
vigor  that  has  always  characterized 
the  application  of  error. 

To  say,  "If  puritanical  belief  culti- 
vated firmness  of  will,  why  not  return 
to  puritanism?"  is  cowardice  and 
folly.  The  march  of  human  belief  can- 
not be  controlled;  men  do  not  believe 
what  they  will  but  what  they  must; 
and  whether  we  rejoice  or  lament  we 
cannot  alter  the  fact  that  the  human 
will  is  no  longer  greatly  influenced  by 
the  fear  of  God. 

It   remains    for   us   to    set   about 

176 


strengthening  it  through  the  love  of   A  Matter  of 

man.  Conscience 


177 


WHY  PITY  THE  POOR? 

The  world  has  fallen  into  a  danger- 
ous way  of  calling  the  wholesome  in- 
dustry of  life  by  hard  names,  and  there 
is  a  prevailing  readiness  to  find  excuse 
for  personal  shortcomings  in  the 
"drudgery,"  the  "grind,"  the  "strug- 
gle" of  everyday  work  and  wages.  We 
are  all  prone  to  regard  "the  environ- 
ment" as  something  which  hems  us  in, 
instead  of  what  it  really  is  —  the  trel- 
lis upon  which  character  may  grow; 
the  scaffolding  upon  which  one  may 
climb  to  serener  heights;  the  trapeze 
upon  which  we  may  take  such  exercise 
as  will  keep  our  moral  muscles  from 
flabbiness. 

It  is  no  doubt  soothing  to  self-love 
to  think  that  we  would  all  fly  if  we 
were  not  caged,  but  the  melancholy 
fact  remains  that  if  most  of  us  grovel 
it  is  because  we  are  grovelling. 

We  all  recognize  the  value  of  self- 

178 


denial  and  hardship  and  untoward  Why  Pity 
conditions  —  for  ancestral  purposes.  thel 
As  a  people  we  are  rather  fond  of 
pointing  backward  to  the  endurance 
of  our  forefathers,  with  one  hand, 
wThile  we  pat  ourselves  on  the  chest 
with  the  other  and  say:  "See  what 
a  fine,  sturdy,  and  altogether  credit- 
able sort  of  person  I  am,  by  rea- 
son of  a  long  line  of  hardy  pioneer 
ancestry ! " 

Strangely  enough,  one  of  our  fa- 
vorite nineteenth  century  ways  of 
proving  our  worth  is  to  go  about  try- 
ing to  divest  other  people  of  every 
remnant  of  self-respect  acquired  or  in- 
herited. Our  New  England  origina- 
tors fought  a  stubborn  soil,  a  bitter 
climate,  famine,  sickness,  Indians,  and 
religious  persecution,  and  out  of  the 
turmoil  and  hardship,  and  conscien- 
tious narrowness  of  it  all  they  gave 
their  children  a  heritage  of  strength, 
frugality  and  endurance.  They  had 
much  to  combat ;  but  one  enemy  they 
were  spared.  They  were  not  called  to 
fight  organized  philanthropy.  It  is 

179 


Why  Pity  not  recorded  that  any  "fund"  was 
started  to  assist  the  parents  of  Benja- 
min Franklin  as  they  reared  their  fam- 
ily of  thirteen  children  in  honest  pov- 
erty. One  shudders  a  little,  following 
down  the  years,  to  think  what  we 
might  have  lost  if  Abraham  Lincoln 
had  been  discovered  by  the  "Society 
for  the  Assistance  of  Indigent  and  De- 
serving Young  Men"!  Imagine,  if 
you  can  without  apoplexy,  a  commit- 
tee reporting  upon  your  pioneer 
grandparents,  or  mine,  as  "a  case  of 
destitution" — a  fate  their  hardships 
would  certainly  insure  them  in  our 
day. 

Why  pity  the  poor,  anyway?  The 
only  sting  that  honest  poverty  knows 
is  pity.  If  no  one  felt  sorry  for  you 
because  your  coat  is  patched,  would 
the  patch  prove  a  discomfort?  Wealth 
may  be  a  means  of  happiness,  but  he 
who  attains  happiness  without  it  flies 
over  a  mountain  instead  of  climbing 
it.  Pity  the  poor  in  spirit,  the  narrow- 
souled,  the  friendless;  pity  the  afflict- 
ed, the  bereft,  the  disappointed,  and 

180 


when  you  have  done  with  these,  if  you   Why  Pity 
have  any  pity  left,  expend  it  on  those 
who  have  only  wealth  to  make  them 
happy. 

There  is  an  urgent  demand  in  the 
world  for  happiness.  Not  ecstasy, 
nor  delirium,  nor  excitement,  but  sim- 
ple happiness.  If  the  poor  are  to  be 
made  miserable  because  they  are  poor 
and  the  rich  are  not  allowed  to  be 
happy  because  they  are  rich,  upon 
whom  are  we  to  depend  to  keep  up  our 
spirits  ?  Heretofore  the  "fellow  of  in- 
finite jest"  has  generally  been,  like 
Yorick,  poor.  The  millionaire  at  his 
desk  has  not  enlivened  us  by  his  wit 
as  often  as  has  the  porter  on  the  pave- 
ment. It  is  the  impecunious  onlooker 
who  finds  amusement  in  the  solemn 
parade  of  the  rich  taking  themselves 
seriously  in  Central  Park.  If,  as  some 
say,  the  American  is  coming  to  be 
known  abroad  by  the  sadness  of  his 
smile,  may  it  not  be  because  only  rich 
Americans  go  abroad? 

Certainly  we  are  not  a  melancholy 
people  at  home.  True  we  are  not  hi- 

181 


Why  Pity  larious ;  but  humor  and  hilarity  rarely 
go  hand  in  hand.  A  keen  sense  of  hu- 
mor prompts  the  possessor  to  take 
things  quietly.  No  man  has  a  greater 
fear  of  "making  himself  ridiculous" 
than  the  American,  simply  because  no 
one  knows  man's  capacity  for  being 
ridiculous  better  than  he.  If  we  have 
any  national  characteristic  aside  from 
the  disposition  to  think  we  have  many, 
it  is  the  fear  of  being  laughed  at  —  a 
fear  which  has  its  origin  in  a  readiness 
to  laugh  and  a  knowledge  of  what  is 
laughable.  Even  our  artists  play 
about  the  edges  of  great  passions  into 
which  the  Slav  and  the  Gaul  fling 
themselves,  because,  being  Americans, 
they  are  ever  mindful  of  the  fact  that 
human  passion,  like  all  ephemeral 
things,  perpetually  trembles  on  the 
verge  of  the  ludicrous. 

If,  then,  the  rich  American  abroad 
has  a  sad  smile,  it  is  either  because  he 
is  abroad  or  because  he  is  rich,  for 
however  deeply  care  and  worry  may 
etch  their  lines  on  the  face  of  the 
American  business  man,  the  American 

182 


worker,  if  he  be  blessed  with  poverty  Why  Pity 
enough  to  keep  him  at  work  eight 
hours  a  day,  and  wealth  enough  to 
keep  him  from  worry  the  remain- 
ing sixteen,  is  a  light-hearted  and 
jocular  sort  of  person.  His  wit  and 
humor  flash  and  bubble  on  street- 
cars, in  shops,  and  on  railway  plat- 
forms, and  his  optimistic  good  nature 
makes  it  well  nigh  impossible  to 
crowd  or  jostle  or  jam  him  into  ill- 
temper. 

As  for  his  sister,  the  woman  who 
works  for  money,  and  seems  in  con- 
sequence to  have  monopolized  the 
name  of  "working  woman,"  perhaps 
she  is  a  trifle  sad-eyed  and  dispirited. 
It  may  be  that  long  years  of  prejudice 
have  taught  her  to  look  upon  idleness 
as  her  birthright;  that  the  prehistoric 
man  who  offered  support  in  exchange 
for  maternity,  failed  to  have  his  con- 
tract in  writing.  Or  it  may  be  that 
she  does  not  go  to  work  unt'il  losses 
and  disappointments  drive  her  to  it. 
Or,  perchance,  the  oft-repeated  and 
much-denied  assertion  of  her  lack  of 

183 


Why  Pity  humor  is  correct.  No  one  knows  but 
herself,  and  she  does  not  know  that 
she  knows. 


184 


EARNING  HER  BREAD  — AND 
JAM 

Grave  fears  are  rife  among  us  that 
the  American  Young  Man  may  be 
driven  to  the  wall  industrially  by 
the  ubiquitous  and  ever-encroaching 
Young  Woman.  To  his  honor  be  it 
said  that  the  Young  Man,  himself, 
does  not  seem  to  share  the  alarm  of 
his  elders,  but  keeps  on  his  narrowing 
way  to  affluence  or  poverty  with  a 
cheerful  optimism  which  may  be  the 
result  of  youth,  of  sex,  or  of  both. 
Possibly  he  and  the  Young  Woman 
are  secretly  much  amused  by  the  dole- 
ful middle-aged  clamor  which  is  going 
on  about  them  as  to  the  probable  ex- 
tinction of  marriage,  and  there  is  little 
doubt  that  many  of  their  elders  find 
inward  comfort  in  the  reflection  that 
nothing  is  expected  of  them  in  the 
premises  but  advice. 

There  is  always  a  comfortable  ir- 

185 


Earning  responsibility  in  discussing  industrial 
Heandrjam  an(*  scientific  problems,  since  social 
forces  and  those  of  nature  are  gen- 
erally beyond  our  control  and  will 
move  on  according  to  their  own  laws. 
Not  all  the  talk  of  a  century  concern- 
ing the  effect  on  labor  of  the  invention 
of  machinery  has  resulted  in  one  ma- 
chine the  less,  and  it  is  not  likely  that 
any  amount  of  public  clamor  will  in- 
duce the  Young  Woman  to  vacate  her 
desk  or  resign  her  ledger  so  long  as  it 
suits  her  employer  and  herself  for  her 
to  retain  them.  She  is  not  generally 
in  her  place  from  any  higher  moral  im- 
pulse than  that  which  actuates  the 
Young  Man  in  his;  necessity,  or  na- 
tive energy  which,  in  the  agricultural 
epoch  of  her  great  grandmother, 
found  an  outlet  in  spinning,  weaving 
and  butter  making,  and  which  refuses 
to  be  shut  up  in  six  rooms  with  an 
able-bodied  mother  and  two  or  three 
full-grown  sisters,  is  her  abundant 
justification.  When  men  were  build- 
ing cotton  and  woolen  mills  and 
creameries  they  did  not  stop  to  ask 

186 


whether  they  were  taking  away  her  Earning 
occupations,  and  it  is  not  to  be  ex- 
pected  that  she  should  trouble  herself 
greatly  about  theirs.  She  has  gener- 
ally found  men  quite  able  to  take  care 
of  themselves. 

But  the  wise  and  worried  tell  us 
that  this  heartless  unconcern  on  the 
Young  Woman's  part,  will  lead  to  her 
own  discomfiture;  that  if  she  obstin- 
ately continues  to  earn  her  own  bread 
and  butter,  or,  as  they  sometimes 
justly  charge,  to  take  her  bread  and 
butter  from  her  parents  and  earn  her 
own  jam,  she  will  make  it  impossible 
for  men  to  marry  and  support  a  fam- 
ily. The  situation  is  certainly  unique. 
Assuredly,  if  the  Young  Woman  con- 
tinues to  take  care  of  herself,  she  will 
make  it  difficult  for  any  to  take  care 
of  her,  and  it  is  quite  possible  that 
marriage  may  be  driven  to  finding 
some  excuse  for  itself  other  than  sup- 
port. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  women  de- 
velop a  taste  and  ability  for  earning 
money,  it  will  not  be  necessary  for 

187 


Earning  men  to  earn  so  much,  and  the  specta- 
6ai?drjam  c^e  °^  tne  overworked  brother  whose 
pride  obliges  him  to  forego  matri- 
mony that  he  may  support,  not  only  a 
widowed  mother  but  two  or  three  idle 
sisters,  may  become  a  thing  of  the 
past.  As  for  the  much-maligned 
young  woman  who  boards  at  home 
and  works  for  low  wages  wherewith 
to  buy  finery,  she  is  no  more  reprehen- 
sible, perhaps,  than  the  young  man 
who  lives  at  home  and  works  for  such 
wage,  low  or  high,  as  he  can  get,  that 
he  may  spend  it  on  carriage  hire,  flow- 
ers and  bon-bons  for  idle  young 
women.  Far  better  let  the  flimsy- 
souled  girl  whose  heart  is  set  upon 
finery,  earn  it  honestly  and  wear  it 
with  her  silly  head  held  high  in  girlish 
innocence,  than  to  tax  the  public  for 
reformatories.  What  if  she  does  pre- 
vent some  man  from  marrying  and 
rearing  a  family  of  girls  to  repeat  the 
colorless  inanity  of  her  own  life?  It 
may  be  well  for  us  to  care  for  the  chil- 
dren that  are  born  before  we  shed 
maudlin  tears  over  the  unborn. 

188 


The  world  cannot  go  on  changing  Earning 
for  the  man  and  remain  stationary  for 
the  woman.  Desire  it  as  he  may,  the 
Young  Man  cannot  resume  the  occu- 
pations of  his  grandfather.  An  age  of 
vast  enterprises,  of  powerful  combina- 
tions, of  gigantic  trusts,  is  an  age  of 
increasing  salaried  workers  —  an  age 
of  clerks.  Men  and  women  by  their 
wants,  their  ambitions,  their  tireless 
activities,  have  made  these  changes; 
the  changes  have  not  made  them. 
Manhood  and  womanhood,  love  and 
marriage  are  not  likely  to  perish  until 
something  better  is  evolved.  That 
something  better  will  pretty  certainly 
be  something  outwardly  different,  but 
it  will  be  inwardly  the  same.  Charac- 
ter manifests  itself  through  circum- 
stances, but  he  who  confounds  the 
two  makes  a  grave  blunder.  If  your 
daughter  lacks  any  of  her  grand- 
mother's virtues,  it  is  not  because 
she  has  forgotten  how  to'  curtsy 
and  learned  to  ride  a  bicycle,  but  be- 
cause you  have  failed  to  transmit  to, 
and  develop  in  her,  the  grace  of  soul 

189 


Earning   which  dominated  her  grandmother's 


Her  Bread-    i-r 
and  Jam      lte- 


If  the  Young  Man's  one  hundred 
dollars  a  month  has  become  fifty  by 
reason  of  the  Young  Woman's  com- 
petition, there  is  little  probability  that 
the  other  fifty  is  being  spent  by  her 
entirely  upon  herself.  Oftener  than 
otherwise  it  is  supporting  a  modest 
household  and  he  and  she,  if  they  be 
so  minded,  can  live  upon  his  earn- 
ings when  that  modest  household  no 
longer  demands  her  aid.  If  their  af- 
fection will  not  stand  the  strain  of 
self-sacrifice,  one  or  the  other  must  be 
unworthy,  and  it  is  no  great  loss  to 
society  if  the  unworthy  remain  un- 
wed. 

The  young  woman  who  expects  to 
step  out  of  her  father's  house,  which 
represents  years  of  industry  and  accu- 
mulation, into  another  equally  luxuri- 
ous, must  be  prepared  to  leave  off 
where  her  parents  began,  since  in- 
herited wealth  is  of  short  tenure 
among  us. 

The  gently-bred  girl  has  heard  this 

190 


until,  we  suspect,  she  is  growing  a  Earning 
trifle  tired  of  it.  If  she  could  speak  for 
herself,  which  propriety  forbids,  she 
would,  no  doubt,  astonish  us  by  her 
unpractical  view.  In  spite  of  all  the 
worldliness  which  has  been  attributed 
to  her,  she  rarely  looks  at  marriage 
from  the  industrial  side.  With  a  con- 
scious capacity  for  self-sacrifice,  she 
dimly  wonders  why  there  are  no  men 
who  inspire  it.  The  fact  that  a  man 
will  "get  on,"  which  seems  to  mean  so 
much  to  her  elders,  does  not  make  him 
worthy  in  her  eyes.  Education,  good 
breeding,  gentle  manners  are  large 
factors  in  daily  life.  If  our  young 
men  are  content  to  be  mere  money- 
getters,  they  must  expect  to  be  tried 
by  their  own  standard.  When  there 
are  men  who  will  make  poverty  worth 
while  there  will  be  women  to  brave  it 
with  them. 

The  mercenary  young  woman  is 
not  often  found  among  the  very  rich 
or  the  very  poor.  Her  habitat  seems 
to  be  that  fringe  of  society  where  un- 
gratified  vanity  and  crude  social  am- 

191 


Earning   bition  have  resolved  life  into  a  strug- 

Her Bread-        i       r          j-      1  i\ /r       1 

and  jam  gle  for  display.  Much  turning  and 
dyeing  and  bedizening  of  old  finery  be- 
gets mental  tawdriness,  and  the  girl 
who  will  not  escape  from  it  by  honest 
work,  looks  to  marriage  for  her  re- 
lease. Is  it  not  possible  that  she 
would  do  less  harm  in  the  labor 
market  than  in  domestic  life? 


192 


THE  VIRTUE  OF  HATRED 

Why  a  knowledge  of  good  should 
be  called  innocence,  and  a  knowledge 
of  evil  experience,  is  hard  to  explain. 
Wise  men  blush  at  the  charge  of  ig- 
norance brought  by  those  learned  in 
iniquity,  forgetting  all  the  good  of 
which  their  accusers  have  no  ken. 
Vice  turned  virtue  is  generally  brag- 
gart and  dictatorial,  essaying  to  guide 
the  steps  of  those  who  have  avoided 
pitfalls.  Character  is  the  only  gar- 
ment of  which  the  wearer  boasts  that 
it  has  been  often  to  the  cleaner.  Men 
flock  to  hear  a  blatant  "evangelist" 
vaunt  himself  on  his  struggle  from  the 
mire  and  all  around  are  men  whose 
better  wisdom  has  kept  them  clean. 
"But  the  good  men  were  not  tempt- 
ed," you  say?  Then  go  to 'them  in 
crowds  and  learn  why.  They  have 
something  to  tell  worth  while. 

The  society  that  commits  its  virtue 

193 


The  Virtue  to  the  keeping  of  the  physically  weak, 
will  always  defend  evil  by  calling  good 
effeminate.  Have  we  any  right  to 
wonder  when  callow  intellects  deduce 
the  virility  of  vice?  Society  is  suffer- 
ing for  a  little  fearless  honesty.  Legis- 
lation might  rest  from  the  suppression 
of  evil  if  only  those  who  hate  it  dared 
to  show  their  hate.  What  save  cow- 
ardice gives  us  the  laughable  spectacle 
of  good  men  separating  themselves 
from  iniquity  by  a  public  ordinance 
and  walking  arm  in  arm  with  the  of- 
fender ?  Loving  the  sinner  and  hating 
the  sin?  My  good  friend,  the  sin  is 
the  sinner. 

Most  picturesque  of  all  our  would- 
be  virtues,  and  therefore  dearest  to  the 
sentimentalist,  is  forgiveness.  And 
what  is  it?  A  chimera.  Your  friend 
plays  you  false;  what  is  he  to  you  ever 
afterward  but  a  traitor?  You  have 
forgiven  him  —  you  love  him  still? 
Have  a  care  how  you  love  falsity.  But 
he  is  sorry  —  he  repents?  Love  him 
then  with  a  reservation,  for  part  of 
him  is  not  your  friend.  Not  all  the 

194 


power  of  the  universe  can  get  a  man  The  Virtue 
back  where  he  was  before  he  did  his  ' 
neighbor  wrong.  Every  step  taken  in 
returning  to  the  right  path  might  have 
carried  him  forward  in  it.  All  the 
moral  energy  exerted  in  overcoming 
unrighteousness  might  have  made  for 
righteousness.  We  may  blot  out  our 
share  in  his  punishment,  but  his  sin 
cannot  be  blotted  out.  Strange  that 
man  retains  a  moral  sense  in  spite  of 
all  his  efforts  to  strangle  it  with 
dogma ! 

It  is  humility  rather  than  pride 
that  keeps  the  clear-sighted  from  per- 
petually suing  for  pardon.  The  futility 
of  the  plea  oppresses  him.  Wrong 
cannot  be  righted,  it  may  only  be 
avoided,  and  that  is  a  matter  of  future 
conduct  not  of  present  words.  It  is 
better  that  sorrow  for  one's  misdeeds 
should  lie  too  deep  for  words,  than  too 
shallow  for  actions.  The  man  of  shuf- 
fling morals  is  easily  brought  to  his 
knees.  The  valiant  soul  confesses  to 
itself,  does  penance  until  death,  and 
looks  for  no  absolution.  God  and  man 

195 


The  Virtue  may  forget  my  offense,  but  when  I 
forget  it  the  numbness  of  spiritual 
death  has  set  in.  He  who  asks  that 
his  sins  be  washed  away  begs  for 
moral  blindness.  Far  better  ask  that 
the  memory  of  his  good  deeds  be  blot- 
ted out.  Character  would  suffer  less 
from  the  loss.  Remorse  is  tonic,  for- 
giveness is  anaesthetic.  The  truly  re- 
pentant cannot  forgive  himself;  why 
should  he  ask  another  to  do  what  he 
finds  impossible?  Why  claim  a  mira- 
cle at  the  hands  of  his  maker?  That 
he  does,  is  but  another  evidence  of  the 
colossal  conceit  of  mortality. 

There  is  no  charity  so  popular  as 
that  which  covers  a  multitude  of  sins 
and  keeps  them  warm  and  comfort- 
able. Tenderness  to  evil  is  very  often 
an  indirect  cruelty  to  good.  Forgive- 
ness too  easily  shades  off  into  conni- 
vance. The  world  may  be  so  busy  re- 
forming the  wrongdoer,  that  it  finds 
no  time  to  encourage  the  rightdoer; 
yet  there  may  be  more  genuine  philan- 
thropy in  smiling  upon  the  good 
man  than  in  weeping  over  the  sot.  A 

196 


little  undisguised  scorn  is  valuable  at  The  Virtue 

of  Hatred 

times. 

The  youth  looking  about  for  a 
career  which  will  bring  him  most 
readily  into  social  prominence  today, 
might  logically  fix  upon  crime.  The 
criminal  is  on  every  tongue  and  on 
every  page.  Government,  education, 
conditions  are  held  responsible  and 
vigorously  attacked.  The  individual 
is  treated  gently  as  an  irresponsi- 
ble effect.  And  yet  man  is,  and  al- 
ways has  been,  the  great  first  cause  of 
evil. 

Society  rallies  eagerly  at  the  call 
of  an  abstraction.  It  is  so  much  easier 
to  build  "rescue"  homes  than  to  close 
our  own  to  well  dressed  vice.  "Judge 
not,"  we  say  virtuously  when  we  are 
too  cowardly  to  follow  our  judgment. 
In  all  our  analysis  of  evil,  in  all  our 
wordy  efforts  at  its  suppression,  are 
we  forgetting  the  vital  remedy  —  to 
hate  it? 


197 


RIGHTS  AND  THE  RIGHT 

The  man  who  is  perpetually  looking 
after  his  rights  is  very  likely  to  be 
neglectful  of  his  duties.  What  many 
are  pleased  to  call  a  strong  sense  of 
justice  is  often  only  a  strong  sense  of 
injustice.  They  do  not  love  the  right 
so  much  as  they  hate  the  wrong,  and 
they  do  not  hate  the  wrong  so  much 
as  they  hate  to  be  wronged.  Those  of 
us  who  make  our  indignation  under 
personal  injustice  the  measure  of 
our  principle,  should  note  carefully 
whether  we  feel  the  same  wrath  when 
our  neighbor  is  the  victim.  If  we  are 
really  at  war  with  evil,  our  own  hurts 
will  not  count  for  much.  The  man 
who  is  fighting  fire  does  not  stop  to 
nurse  his  burns. 

We  should  never  collect  our  spiri- 
tual dues  to  the  uttermost  farthing. 
To  have  life  in  our  debt  gives  us  the 
whip-hand  of  fate.  The  penalty  of 

198 


being  square  with  the  world  is  that  we  Rights  and 
have  nothing  "coming  to  us."  The  in- 
dividual is  poor  indeed  to  whom  the 
world  owes  only  a  living.  Two  things 
we  should  all  learn  —  to  be  imposed 
upon  by  our  inferiors  and  to  be  helped 
by  our  superiors.  Only  by  this  do  we 
discover  our  social  status  —  our  in- 
feriors are  those  who  can  impose  upon 
us,  our  superiors  those  who  can  help 
us.  The  American  has  been  derided 
for  his  silence  under  small  injustice  — 
for  being  abashed  by  the  hotel  clerk, 
the  conductor,  the  ticket-agent.  It 
may  be  his  spiritual  coat-of-arms. 
There  is  nothing  of  which  the  great 
soul  is  more  afraid  than  of  smallness. 
The  highest  courage  bears  its  own 
wrongs  that  it  may  redress  those  of 
others. 

When  men  care  very  much  about 
the  thing  involved,  they  say,  "I  care 
only  for  the  principle  of  the  thing." 
As  if  there  were  anything  else  worth 
caring  about.  Conscience  has  become 
so  tangled  with  self-love  that  many 
good  people  mistake  the  one  for  the 

199 


Rightsand  other.  It  is  not  my  conscience  that 
Rlght  hurts  me  when  my  neighbor  keeps  his 
Sabbath  by  breaking  mine;  it  is  my 
egotism.  If  he  had  proper  respect  for 
my  opinion  he  would  worship  my  God. 
His  failure  to  do  so  pains  me,  but  it  is 
a  headache  not  a  heartache.  A  city 
ordinance  will  cure  it. 

It  has  been  the  fashion  ever  since 
Jeremiah  to  regard  one's  own  age  and 
people  as  morally  decadent.  "In  these 
days"  is  our  usual  preface  for  sins  as 
old  as  humanity.  Perhaps  we  owe  our 
zeal  in  "redeeming  the  time"  to  our 
belief  that  "the  days  are  evil."  Vice 
has  taken  on  new  forms  with  us  but  it 
has  deserted  some  of  its  old  ones.  At 
bottom  each  age  thinks  its  own  sins 
an  improvement  on  those  that  went 
before.  They  are  more  to  its  taste. 
For  the  purpose  of  oratory  the  capital 
that  fetters  and  the  competition  that 
fells  the  weak  are  worse  than  slavery 
and  bloodshed,  but  a  taste  of  serfdom 
or  savage  warfare  would  silence  the 
orator.  The  corpses  of  a  few  brave 
men  are  mutilated  by  their  victors  and 

200 


the  modern  world  turns  white  to  the   Rights  and 
lips.     Compared  with  the  future  our  ] 
age    is    perhaps    "no    better    than    it 
should  be,"  but  compared  with   the 
past  it  shows  hopeful  tendencies. 

It  is  not  well  for  individuals  or  na- 
tions to  dwell  too  much  upon  their 
vices  or  their  virtues.  No  doubt  the 
latter  are  too  few  and  the  former  too 
many,  but  the  public  as  well  as  the 
private  conscience  has  morbid  possi- 
bilities. Whatever  is  wrong  in  our 
day  and  generation,  you  and  I  are  at 
the  bottom  of  it.  One  seventy-mil- 
lionth of  the  responsibility  rests  with 
each  of  us.  This  fact  ought  to  fill  us 
with  hope. 

Social  analysts  tell  us  that  we  have 
more  intense  desires  and  feebler  wills 
than  our  forefathers  —  tenderer  hearts 
and  tougher  consciences ;  higher  ideals 
and  lower  expectations.  Certainly  one 
might  be  born  into  a  worse  time  than 
that  of  eager  desire,  kindliness  and 
high  ideals,  and  it  may  be  that,  tested 
by  these  positive  virtues  only,  do  will, 
conscience  and  hope  appear  weaker. 

201 


Rightsand         During   the   last    fifty   years    the 
the  Right   wor|d  has  been  rapi(ily  shedding  its 

theology.  During  the  next  fifty  it  will 
formulate  its  religion.  Heretofore  the 
two  have  been  inextricably  confused. 
Our  ideas  of  right  have  not  materially 
changed,  but  many  have  forsaken  the 
old  reasons  why.  The  command  of 
God,  the  hope  of  heaven,  the  fear  of 
hell,  have  lost  their  potency,  and  he 
who  loved  neither  God  nor  man  so 
much  as  he  feared  the  flames,  is  re- 
leased on  his  own  recognizance.  We 
have  his  honest  immorality  in  ex- 
change for  his  dishonest  morality,  and 
the  former  will  doubtless  harm  us  as 
little  as  the  latter  helped  us.  When 
we  teach  our  children  the  right  as 
zealously  as  our  fathers  taught  the 
catechism,  we  shall  hear  less  com- 
plaint of  wavering  consciences.  That 
we  have  ceased  to  be  afraid  to  die  is 
no  proof  that  our  children  know  by  in- 
stinct how  to  live.  The  moral  sense  of 
a  child  needs  instruction,  but  it  will 
not  grow  strong  on  the  bones  of  a 
creed  from  which  you  and  I  have 

202 


picked  all  the  meat.    The  best  results   Bights  and 

r  i-r    1  .LI  1    ,  i  •  the  Right 

of  our  lifelong  thought  and  experience 
are  none  too  good  for  its  use.  Above 
all  things  we  must  lend  it  the  courage 
of  hope. 

The  progress  of  society  is  not 
measured  by  its  unhappiness  or  by  its 
content,  but  by  its  happy  discontent, 
and  the  man  or  woman  who  cannot 
go  about  his  reforms  with  a  glad  heart 
should  look  to  his  own  reformation 
first.  The  energy  of  despair  is  not  a 
reliable  factor  in  evolution.  Works 
without  faith  are  dead. 

More  and  more  the  world  is  com- 
ing to  realize  the  duty  of  happiness. 
Not  the  duty  of  pursuing  happiness 
but  of  being  happy  —  not  joy  at  the 
end,  but  joy  by  the  way.  We  should 
take  our  heaven  piecemeal,  with  no 
thought  for  the  morrow  of  death.  He 
who  can  conquer  this  life  need  have 
no  fear  of  another,  but  he  who  allows 
his  soul  to  be  daunted  by  losses,  or 
failure,  or  the  -  pain  of  living  must 
stand  forever  on  the  threshold  of  hell. 


203 


"HIGH  NOTIONS" 

A  little  learning  is  preferable  to  a 
great  deal  of  ignorance.  Knowledge, 
much  or  little,  never  hurt  any  human 
being.  He  who  seems  to  suffer  from 
it,  suffers  only  from  ignorance  of  his 
limitations.  It  is  not  in  what  he 
knows  that  danger  lies  for  the  man  of 
small  knowing;  it  is  in  what  he  does 
not  know.  It  is  not  the  little  learning 
but  the  large  estimate  of  it  that  is  the 
dangerous  thing. 

When  we  have  got  our  highly  spe- 
cialized American,  densely  ignorant  of 
all  things  but  his  own  dependent  craft, 
we  may  find  him  a  clamorous  and  tur- 
bulent citizen;  we  may  wish  we  had 
not  exchanged  for  him  the  facile  prod- 
uct of  a  no  doubt  faulty  system,  who 
aimed  too  high  perhaps,  but  caught  at 
something  as  he  fell  and  hung  on 
hopefully.  What  if  he  did  try  to  be  a 
lawyer  when  God  meant  him  for  a 

204 


blacksmith?     The   mistake   was    be-   "High 
tween  him  and  his  Maker,  and  he  did   Notions' 
not  hold  the  State  responsible. 

It  is  out  of  the  ambitions,  the  at- 
tempts and  the  failures,  that  we  get 
our  really  great;  and  when  we  sneer 
at  the  aspirations  of  the  crude  and  un- 
taught, we  should  remember  that  it  is 
only  when  they  fail  that  they  are  folly. 
When  they  succeed  they  are  biog- 
raphy. 

If  our  youth  come  home  from 
school  with  "high  notions/*  it  is  by 
no  means  certain  that  they  learned 
them  there.  When  "high  notions" 
disappear  from  among  us  the  republic 
will  be  dead  and  buried. 

By  no  twisting  or  turning  will  the 
letters  of  democracy  spell  content. 
When  crowns  cease  to  be  hereditary, 
crosses  cease  to  be  so  as  well.  If  a 
man  may  not  rule  because  his  father 
was  a  king,  another  need  not  mend 
shoes  because  his  father  was  a  cobbler. 
Eternal  hope  is  eternal  unrest. 

Let  your  High  School  boy  and  girl 
try  what  they  will,  and  fail  if  need  be; 

205 


"High  they  will  come  out  of  it  happier  and 
saner  and  less  of  a  menace  to  society 
than  those  whose  ambitions  smoulder 
under  a  dead  weight  of  ignorance. 
Education  is  the  safety-valve  of  am- 
bition. 

When  we  have  no  boys  and  girls 
with  ambitions  too  lofty  for  their  cir- 
cumstances we  shall  have  no  men  and 
women  of  attainments  lofty  enough 
for  our  needs. 

When  parents  learn  to  believe, 
teachers  will  learn  to  teach,  that  educa- 
tion is  a  means  of  happiness,  not  of 
gain.  When  we  at  home  have  taught 
our  boys  and  girls  that  money  is  a 
means  of  education,  not  education  a 
means  of  making  money,  we  shall  be 
ready  to  bring  a  charge  against  our 
schools  because  our  children  come 
from  them  with  undue  reverence  for 
appearances. 

No  one  knows  just  what  the  work 
of  the  future  is  to  be,  but  all  of  us 
know  the  kind  of  men  and  women  who 
will  do  it  well.  Active,  alert,  in- 
dustrious, courageous,  conscientious, 

206 


hoping  for  the  best  and  ready  for  "High 
the  worst  — these  are  the  men  and 
women  our  schools  and  homes  should 
be  making.  Whether  they  do  it  by 
means  of  the  classics  or  the  forge, 
through  the  brain  or  the  hand,  mat- 
ters little;  but  that  they  do  it  matters 
much. 


207 


JUST  AFTER  CHRISTMAS 

Now  that  Christmas  is  over  and 
each  one  of  us  has  sent  his  conscience 
out  as  a  committee  of  one  to  draft 
resolutions  for  the  New  Year,  it  is  an 
excellent  thing  for  the  mental  man, 
and  an  imperative  necessity  for  the 
physical  woman,  to  sit  down  and  rest 
a  bit  beside  the  dying  Yule-fire.  And 
while  one  is  resting,  there  can  be  no 
great  harm  in  thinking  a  little  —  at 
least  until  conscience  brings  in  its  re- 
port and  lashes  one  away  from  such 
unprofitable  employment. 

"One  man  among  a  thousand  have 
I  found ;  but  a  woman  among  all  those 
have  I  not  found"  who  is  entirely 
satisfied  with  her  Christmas  giving. 
What  she  honestly  intended  to  be  a 
spontaneous  expression  of  regard, 
came  to  be  a  matter  of  book-keeping. 
She  "remembered  her  friends"  by 
writing  their  names  in  lists  and  check- 

208 


ing  them  off;  and  in  her  anxiety  not  to  Just  After 
forget  those  whom  she  loved  well  Christmas 
enough  to  fear  they  would  "expect 
something,"  she  neglected  many  of 
those  who  loved  her  too  well  to  ex- 
pect anything.  Sitting  in  the  twilight 
she  is  constrained  to  take  some  of  the 
ashes  of  the  Yule-log  and  sprinkle 
them  upon  her  head  as  she  remembers 
how  often  in  the  whirl  and  hurry  and 
anxiety  of  holiday  generosity  she  has 
forgotten  that  "peace  on  earth"  is 
quite  as  important  as  "good  will  to 


men." 


At  the  end  of  this  festival  season 
many  of  us  feel  as  if  we,  like  our  coun- 
try, have  just  emerged  from  a  war  of 
benevolence,  and  although  unlike  her, 
we  have  shed  no  blood  in  our  efforts  to 
prove  the  kindness  of  our  hearts,  it  is 
not  unlikely  that  in  our  nervous  anxi- 
ety to  promote  happiness  we  have 
made  those  nearest  and  dearest  to  us 
feel  our  good  deeds  very  keenly  at 
times.  No  doubt  the  near  and  dear 
ones  are  willing  to  be  sacrificed  for 
our  better  aspirations,  else  they  were 

209 


just  After  not  so  dear  even  though  near;  and  the 
aspirations  are  good,  no  matter  how 
imperfectly  we  may  work  them  out. 

Most  of  our  generosity  originates 
in  good  thinking  and  feeling,  even 
when  it  ends  in  injustice;  and  good 
thoughts  and  feelings,  which  are  as- 
suredly very  prevalent  in  our  day,  are 
not  to  be  underestimated  as  factors  in 
social  progress  since  they  furnish  the 
power  that  moves  the  world.  There 
is  vast  room  for  improvement  in  the 
machinery,  but  very  elaborate  machin- 
ery may  stand  idle  for  lack  of  power  — 
a  lack  which  no  observant  thinker  can 
complain  of  just  now.  When  we  have 
learned  to  turn  our  good  will  to  men 
to  account  in  promoting  peace  on 
earth  the  social  problem  will  be  solved. 
The  happiness  of  mankind  has  shifted 
from  a  question  of  intent  to  one  of 
ways  and  means.  Unselfishness  is  in 
the  air.  If  we  have  not  good  motives 
for  our  acts,  individual  or  national,  we 
are  constrained  to  feign  them.  If  we 
adopt  a  child  from  the  street  it  must 
be  to  save  it  from  evil,  not  to  gratify 

210 


our  vanity  and  support  us  in  our  old  Just  After 
age;  if  we  "acquire"  the  Philippines 
it  must  be  for  their  mental  and  moral 
advancement,  not  for  our  temporal 
gain.  There  is,  therefore,  a  lesson  to 
be  learned  from  hypocrisy,  since  men 
do  not  generally  pretend  until  society 
has  made  known  its  exactions.  And 
it  is  a  good  thing,  however  bad  it  may 
seem  to  us  at  times,  that  everything, 
even  to  the  anomaly  of  war,  must  find 
its  excuse  in  altruism  today. 

There  may  be  a  ray  of  comfort  in 
all  this  for  those  of  us  who  have  be- 
taken ourselves  to  the  ashes  of  the 
Yule-log  to  repent  of  our  Christmas 
shortcomings.  Perchance  the  good 
intent  of  our  holiday  giving  may  have 
added  infinitesimally  to  the  uplifting 
of  society  even  though  its  poor  per- 
formance but  swelled  the  list  of  blun- 
ders. Of  a  certainty  those  who  want 
to  do  right  may  learn  how  if  they  be 
so  minded,  while  God  alone  knows 
whether  those  who  want  to  do  wrong 
may  help  themselves  or  be  helped  by 
anybody.  Next  year,  being  wiser  by 

211 


just  After  a  twelvemonth,  we  shall  do  better 
Christmas  whether  that  better  be  more  or  less. 
Women  who  are  tired  in  every 
nerve  and  fibre  from  the  season's  de- 
mands, if  they  do  better  another  year 
will  assuredly  do  less. 

Americans  perpetually  pay  the 
penalty  of  their  own  invention.  Ideas 
are  not  allowed  to  crystallize  into  cus- 
toms with  us,  but  are  shoved  out  of 
the  way  annually  to  make  way  for 
something  new.  Even  the  stupid  peo- 
ple who  are  without  originality  and  if 
left  to  themselves  would  of  necessity 
repeat  themselves,  have  learned  to  ex- 
pect a  new  spectacle  at  every  turn.  No 
merchant  dares  to  decorate  his  window 
as  he  did  a  year  ago,  and  the  Christ- 
mas tree  must  bear  a  dazzling  succes- 
sion of  new  and  marvelous  fruits  for 
every  midwinter  harvest. 

Transplanted  intelligence  coping 
with  the  rigor  of  not  over-fertile  New 
England  farms,  developed  an  ingenu- 
ity which  made  the  Yankee  one  of  the 
wonders  of  the  world;  and  the  child 
of  those  conditions  who  had  to  do  — 

212 


or  do  without  —  is  the  real  inventor  of  Just  After 
the  mechanical  toy  which  your  small   Chrlstmas 
son  watches  for  a  little  and  then  turns 
from  discontentedly  to  beg  for  some 
new  diversion. 

The  extinction  of  the  small  farm  in 
America,  with  its  countless  demands 
for  originality  and  invention,  its  long 
winter  nights  of  study  and  its  long 
summer  days  of  experiment,  will  be 
felt  more  as  years  go  on.  The  chil- 
dren who  invented  their  own  play- 
things, made  different  men  and  wo- 
men from  those  who  are  so  surfeited 
with  the  invention  of  others  that  even 
curiosity  is  dulled. 

And  yet  these  children  of  the  kin- 
dergarten, the  Sloyd,  and  the  manual- 
training  school  will  not  of  necessity 
be  worse  because  they  are  different. 
More  restless  they  will  be  no  doubt, 
with  a  tendency  to  feverishness  from 
crowding,  and  consequent  friction, 
and  because  of  this  it  is  well  for  us  to 
keep  a  jealous  watch  over  the  sim- 
plicity of  their  little  lives;  to  give 
them  more  earth  and  sun  and  air,  that 

213 


just  After    they  may  grow  stronger  and  taller 

Christmas     spiritually  and  a  trifle  nearer  the  blue 

sky  than  their  parents. 

If  Christmas  is  in  reality  the  chil- 
dren's festival,  as  we  all  are  so  fond 
of  saying,  let  us  make  haste  to  sim- 
plify it,  for  it  is  we  and  not  they  who 
have  made  it  a  burden.  He  who  makes 
it  hard  for  children  to  be  happy,  by 
giving  them  more  than  they  can  as- 
similate or  enjoy,  brushes  the  dew  off 
their  lives  and  sprinkles  them  with 
dust. 


214 


HOW  TO  READ  FICTION 

Time  was  when  they  instructed  or 
tried  to  instruct  you  and  me  in  music 
and  painting.  Now  they  are  content 
with  telling  us  "How  to  Listen  to 
Music"  and  "How  to  Look  at  Pic- 
tures." The  day  is  happily  past  when 
"if  a  girl  loves  painting  she  must 
paint,"  and  the  vital  force  once  wasted 
in  the  godlike  experiment  of  trying  to 
make  musicians  and  painters  "in  six 
days  out  of  nothing  and  all  very  good" 
is  now  fortunately  directed  to  teach- 
ing the  common  ones  of  us  to  know 
music  when  we  hear  it  and  a  picture 
when  we  see  it. 

But  thus  far  at  least  I  am  unaware 
of  any  systematic  attempt  to  tell  a 
waiting  public  "How  to  Read  Novels." 
I  know  there  are  those  who-  are  con- 
strained to  suggest  that  a  little  well- 
seasoned  advice  as  to  how  not  to  read 
novels  is  more  urgently  needed;  but 

215 


Howto  these  should  remember  that  some  one 
must  read  even  the  bad  books,  to  warn 
good  people  against  them. 

It  is  so  much  easier  to  decry  a  class 
of  people  or  of  books  than  to  study 
and  discriminate,  that  the  moral 
croaker,  who  always  prefers  being 
ignorantly  miserable  to  intelligently 
happy,  seems  to  enjoy  the  idea  that 
large  numbers  of  promising  youth  are 
being  decoyed  from  the  strait  and 
narrow  path  of  what  they  call  "solid 
reading"  by  the  wiles  of  the  novelist: 
such  seductive  and  harmful  persons  as 
Sarah  Orne  Jewett,  William  Dean 
Howells  and  the  like.  He  who  con- 
trasts "fiction  and  solid  reading"  as 
antipodal  must  bear  in  mind  that 
Shakespeare  and  Dante  and  Milton 
and  Cervantes  wrote  fiction;  and 
while  it  may  not  be  "solid"  it  seems 
to  have  some  qualities  that  give  it  a 
permanent  place  in  the  foundations  of 
literature. 

But  while  it  is  very  true  that  much 
of  the  careful  workmanship,  the  force, 
the  delicate  fancy,  the  illumination 

216 


that  once  found  its  way  to  us  through  How  to 
history  and  poetry  and  essays  and  the 
drama,  today  comes  to  us  through  the 
channel  of  fiction,  it  is  equally  true 
that  the  stream  is  muddied  by  much 
that  had  better  not  come  to  us  at  all. 
Having  found  the  surest  way  to  the 
heart,  it  is  not  strange  that  many  un- 
desirable travelers  are  found  therein. 
But  we  have  no  safety  from  them  save 
in  our  ability  to  discriminate  between 
good  and  bad  literature,  and  this  abil- 
ity does  not  come  from  ignorance. 

To  the  uninitiated  I  suppose  a 
story  is  a  story  and  the  readers  thereof 
a  dissipated  class,  who  partake  of  un- 
realities as  a  drunkard  of  drink  —  to 
drown  realities.  That  there  is  such  a 
class  one  is  forced  to  admit  if  one 
would  logically  account  for  the  mass 
of  hopeless  crudity,  or  worse,  annu- 
ally put  forth  under  the  name  of  fic- 
tion. But  these  readers  are  as  far 
from  the  discriminating  novel-reader 
as  the  devotee  of  the  nickelodeon  from 
the  lover  of  Shakespearean  drama. 

I  remember  a  scholarly  scientist 

217 


How  to  who  devoted  the  day  spent  on  a  rail- 
lon  way  train  delayed  by  a  wreck  in  de- 
lighted absorption  of  his  first  and  only 
novel.  It  was  procured  as  a  last  re- 
sort from  the  train-boy,  and  was 
called  "The  Brazen  Lily,  or  Tried  by 
Fire."  To  his  untutored  palate  it 
had  a  new  and  exquisite  flavor,  and 
thereafter,  whenever  the  subject  of  fic- 
tion came  up,  he  would  turn  an  eager 
gaze  upon  those  present  and  ask, 
"Have  you  read  The  Brazen  Lily?" 
Oft-repeated  disappointment  in  the  re- 
sponse failed  to  rob  his  voice  of  en- 
thusiasm as  he  said,  "Well,  you  ought 
to  read  it.  It's  one  of  the  grandest 
books  ever  written." 

We  walk  among  our  fellow-men  as 
we  walk  among  flowers  and  weeds,  ex- 
periencing delight  or  aversion  with- 
out knowledge:  human  characteris- 
tics go  unclassified  and  unaccounted 
for  by  the  great  mass  of  observers. 

I  have  seen  a  young  woman,  fault- 
lessly clad,  obliged  to  seat  herself  in 
a  crowded  train  beside  a  man  whose 
unique  dress  and  strongly  marked  old 

218 


face  made  him  worth  ten  thousand  HOW  to 
Velasquez  or  Rembrandt  heads  to 
look  at,  and  whose  quaint  speech  if 
one  could  hear  it  would  be  rich  with 
the  terse  richness  of  those  who  draw 
their  vigor  from  the  earth  itself.  And 
how  did  the  young  woman  sit?  On 
the  edge  of  the  seat,  turned  a  little, 
for  fear  the  traveling  world  might 
identify  her  with  her  companion.  And 
what  was  she  doing?  Reading  "Lorna 
Doone."  And  tomorrow  she  will  tell 
me  she  thinks  John  Ridd  "the  most 
magnificent  character  in  fiction."  Pos- 
sibly she  was  riding  beside  him  while 
she  read,  and  wished  him  at  the  North 
Pole  because  he  wore  overalls  and 
suggested  tobacco. 

It  is  well  for  such  young  women 
that  there  are  Blackmores,  to 

"make  [their]  vision  sane  and  clear 
That  [they]  may  see  what  beauty  clings 
In  common  forms,  and  find  the  soul 
Of  unregarded  things." 

For,  bye  and  bye,  with  much  reading, 
they  will  fall  to  thinking;  and  even 
though  they  may  never  know  human 

219 


How  to    nature  as  the  artist  knows  it,  they  will 

Read  Fiction     knQw  ^^  they  d()  nQt  kno^  ^^  per_ 

haps  they  will  grow  respectful  toward 
humanity  in  consequence. 

There  are  those  who  venture  an 
opinion  on  a  novel  as  freely  as  on  a 
pudding,  and  who  consider  that 
"knowing  what  one  likes"  is  sufficient 
preparation  for  intelligent  criticism. 
Indeed,  those  very  superior  souls  who 
"never  read  novels"  are  always  the 
most  bitter  in  their  denunciation  of 
them;  and  I  have  known  two  men  to 
spend  half  an  hour  in  discussing  the 
evil  of  "light  reading"  who  had  read 
nothing  but  newspapers  for  ten  years. 
Ignorance  of  the  other  arts  is  gener- 
ally supposed  to  develop  a  certain  reti- 
cence in  the  expression  of  opinion  con- 
cerning them;  it  is  not  likely  that  one 
who,  knowing  nothing  of  music, 
should  drop  in  on  a  Paderewski  recital 
would  be  greatly  delighted  or  would 
venture  an  opinion  on  the  merits  of 
the  performance;  but  the  man  or  wo- 
man who  cannot  appreciate  good  fic- 
tion seems  disposed  to  flaunt  the  de- 

220 


ficiency.  People  who  do  not  read  HOW  to 
poetry  or  essays  or  history  or  science 
or  the  classic  drama  generally  keep 
these  limitations  modestly  in  the  back- 
ground if,  indeed,  they  do  not  deny 
them;  but  those  who  say,  "I  never 
read  novels,"  always  say  it  with  that 
peculiar  final  snap  of  the  jaws  that  in- 
dicates a  sense  of  superior  virtue;  and 
this  self-approval  seems  not  a  whit 
modified  in  those  that  read  nothing 
at  all. 

To  those  that  read  novels  merely 
for  amusement  or,  as  they  say,  "to 
pass  the  time,"  I  have  not  a  word  to 
say.  To  find  pleasure  of  the  keenest 
sort  in  any  pursuit  is  very  different 
from  pursuing  anything  only  for 
pleasure. 

The  question  is  not  how  many  but 
what  kind  of  novels.  Taste  for  the 
highest  and  best  is  never,  can  never 
become  a  dissipation;  and  the  young 
person  who  devours  trashy  fiction  is 
usually  the  child  of  those  that  con- 
demn without  knowledge. 

Much    concern    is    manifested    in 

221 


HOW  to  various  quarters  over  the  large  per- 
:ion  centage  of  fiction  in  our  public  libra- 
ries, but  in  all  the  wails  over  this  very 
reasonable  and  natural  fact  almost 
nothing  is  said  of  the  character  of  the 
fiction  circulated,  whose  significance 
might  appear  were  some  careful  sta- 
tistics at  our  disposal.  These  would 
show  at  the  outset  the  absence  of  the 
most  alarming  feature,  for  our  libra- 
ries do  not  contain  the  lowest  type  of 
fiction,  although  they  do  of  necessity 
(being  no  better  than  the  people  that 
support  them)  provide  much  that  is  of 
indifferent  worth.  The  inquiry  would 
next  show  a  large  proportion  of  those 
borrowing  novels  to  be  also  readers  of 
general  literature  —  essays,  travels, 
biography,  history;  for  one  cannot 
have  a  cultivated  taste  in  one  depart- 
ment of  literature  without  a  generous 
interest  in  all  others. 

Frowned  upon  by  the  pulpit  and 
viewed  askance  by  the  schoolmaster, 
the  novel  has  yet  gone  steadily  for- 
ward in  public  esteem,  until  today  the 
man  (I  believe  it  is  generally  a  man) 

222 


who  announces  that  he  "never  reads  HOW  to 
fiction"  thereby  forfeits  his  claim  to 
general  culture.  The  progress  of  the 
world  is  marked  by  the  interest  of  man 
in  his  fellow-man,  and  however  his- 
tory, statistics,  theoretical  economics 
and  sociology  may  serve  to  enlighten 
the  mind  of  man  concerning  life  —  the 
joys,  the  sorrows,  the  aspirations,  the 
disappointments  and  the  successes  of 
his  fellows  —  above  them  all,  as  a 
source  of  such  enlightenment,  we 
must  place  the  conscientious  novel. 

The  "conscientious"  novel,  I  say; 
for,  if  morality  is  observance  of  the 
true  relations  of  things,  the  writer 
who  gives  us  a  distorted  view  of  hu- 
man nature  is  answerable  for  a  griev- 
ous sin.  For  men  and  women  get 
their  ideas  of  human  nature  chiefly 
from  books,  despite  the  prevalent  be- 
lief to  the  contrary.  Not  one  indi- 
vidual in  a  thousand  is  able  to  deduce 
anything  definite  from  the  mass  of 
human  phenomena  that  surrounds 
him. 

It  follows  that  one  cannot  write 

223 


Howto  worthily  of  what  one  knows  super- 
ficially or  by  hearsay.  The  stuff  of 
which  conditions  and  incidents  are 
made  must  be  as  ready  to  the  novel- 
ist's hand  as  the  paint  to  the  painter, 
clay  to  the  potter.  When,  therefore,  a 
writer  goes  out  of  the  life  he  has  lived 
into  the  life  of  which  he  is  a  spectator 
only,  the  soul  goes  out  of  his  work. 

"A  Window  in  Thrums,"  to  take  a 
charming  bit  of  fiction,  is  unquestion- 
ably a  work  of  pure  imagination;  but 
the  stuff  from  which  that  imaginary 
picture  of  real  life  is  made  came  out  of 
the  life  of  the  author.  And  we  all 
know  how  refreshing  its  natural  flavor 
is,  compared  with  the  fermentation  of 
almost  everything  else  that  Barrie  has 
written. 

Books  that  become  the  fad  are 
generally,  some  one  has  said,  either 
bad  art  or  bad  morals.  He  might  have 
omitted  the  bad  art,  for  bad  art  is  bad 
morals.  The  book  seized  upon  with 
frenzy  by  the  general  public  is  pre- 
eminently the  novel  of  today  —  but 
not  of  tomorrow.  It  is  made  of  what 

224 


the  mass  of  readers  wish  were  true;   HOW  to 
and  their  wishes  will  change  tomor- 
row and  with  them  their  taste;   the 
truth  alone  will  remain. 

In  the  wake  of  the  simple  and  seri- 
ous realism  of  Tolstoi  and  the  other 
Russians  who  with  sombre  conscien- 
tiousness told  the  story  of  human  life 
as  they  saw  it,  came  a  horde  of  would- 
be  realists  who  said,  "These  men  are 
great  and  they  have  written  of  evil; 
let  me  but  write  of  evil  and  I  shall  be 
great."  And  following  in  their  train 
has  come  the  ethical  novel  which  in  its 
effort  to  popularize  reform  too  often 
succeeds  only  in  popularizing  vice.  All 
of  these  —  the  pessimist,  the  morbid 
historian  of  crime,  the  hysterical  sym- 
bolist—  are  temporary;  they  are  the 
tramps  and  hangers-on  of  literary 
progress.  And  because  the  world  is 
tiring  of  them  (the  only  world  that 
has  ever  found  them  other  than 
tiresome)  there  are  hasty  prophets 
abroad  who  tell  us  that  we  are  to  have 
a  revival  of  romanticism.  There  will 
doubtless  be  a  revival  of  something, 

225 


Howto  and  possibly  that  something  may  be 
romanticism.  That  the  highest  truth 
is  compatible  with  the  highest  imag- 
ination, is  thereby  indeed  revealed,  is 
a  lesson  that  the  best  critics  have 
learned  and  taught  us.  Both  of  these 
go  to  make  the  novelist  of  the  future. 
And  to  the  man  or  woman  to  whom  it 
is  given  to  show  us  our  brother,  to 
reveal  the  humanity  that  lies  beneath 
the  unpromising  exteriors,  to  open  for 
us  the  recesses  of  human  motives,  to 
trace  the  threads  of  human  influences 
—  to  this  man  or  woman  we  shall  do 
ever-increasing  honor. 

Oh  yes,  you  will  say,  genius !  But 
what  about  the  great  mass  of  novels 
that  are  not  the  product  of  genius, 
that  are  out  of  focus,  indifferently 
written,  unreal?  Shall  we  toil  through 
these  for  the  sake  of  the  occasional 
"find"? 

Through  them,  no;  but  among 
them,  yes.  What  is  life  but  the  pur- 
suit of  perfection,  and  what  is  pure 
joy  but  rewarded  search?  After  all, 
is  it  any  worse  than  the  other  scien- 

226 


tific   pursuits:    the   dragging   of  the   HOW  to 

,      j          j   i     •  r    Read  Fiction 

ocean-bed  and  bringing  up  masses  of 
life  to  be  overhauled  for  the  bliss  of  a 
discovery;  the  patient  clipping  away 
of  uninteresting  limestone  to  release 
a  new  crinoid  —  the  endless  search 
among  the  known  in  quest  of  the  great 
unknown?  Why  sit  lazily  by  and  let 
posterity  decide  for  us  what  is  great? 
Why  fear  to  risk  our  judgment  on  the 
present?  The  value  of  the  study  of 
human  life  as  recorded  in  the  best  fic- 
tion makes  it  quite  worth  while  to  be 
able  to  recognize  the  best  fiction  when 
found;  and  as  the  test  is  always  at 
hand  there  is  no  reason  why  conscien- 
tious readers  should  not  learn  to  ap- 
ply it. 

The  test  of  good  fiction  is  beyond 
question  its  veracity,  and  to  apply  this 
test  one  must  cultivate  his  own  powers 
of  observation,  must  learn  to  look  at 
life  with  steady,  unprejudiced  eyes, 
must  lay  aside  what  he  wishes  were 
true  and  satisfy  his  soul  with  what  is 
true.  By  true  I  do  not  of  course  mean 
in  detail  but  in  proportion.  And  by 

227 


How  to  properly  proportioned  fiction  I  mean 
:ipn  that  which  stands  the  test  of  human 
experience  —  a  test  quite  as  readily  ap- 
plied to  romantic  as  to  realistic  liter- 
ature. 

The  educated  taste  succumbs  at 
once  to  properly  proportioned  fiction, 
be  it  realism  or  romance;  each  is  con- 
vincing in  its  own  way.  There  is  of 
course  the  purely  fanciful  tale,  which 
makes  no  demand  upon  credulity.  But 
the  unreal  novel  is  distinctly  immoral. 
Pretending  to  represent  life  it  mis- 
represents it,  gives  results  out  of  pro- 
portion to  causes,  makes  bad  appear 
good,  treats  flippantly  serious  ills, 
gives  undue  prominence  to  emotion, 
lulls  the  reader  into  the  belief  that 
what  he  finds  attractive  is  true. 

Strangely  enough,  even  the  ignor- 
ant are  constrained  to  get  their  knowl- 
edge of  life  from  books.  The  factory- 
girl  and  the  milliner's  apprentice  can- 
not generalize  for  themselves.  If  they 
could,  matrimony  for  them,  reasoning 
by  analogy,  would  mean  hard  work, 
narrow  economy,  days  of  weariness 

228 


lighted  up  by  occasional  joys,  the  love   How  to 
and  the  loss  of  children,  reason  for 
gladness  if  they  escape  unkindness  or 
neglect  —  the  life,  in  short,  that  their 
mothers  have  led. 

To  escape  this  picture,  against 
which  their  fancy  rebels,  we  find  them 
eagerly  following  the  fate  of  ignorant 
but  beautiful  maidens  snatched  from 
the  cruel  embrace  of  poverty  by  high- 
born suitors,  and  living  thereafter  ten- 
derly loved  and  thickly  encrusted  with 
diamonds  —  a  fate  set  forth  in  the 
pages  of  the  countless  cheap  publica- 
tions whose  titles  and  whose  authors 
are  utterly  without  interest  to  you  and 
me  save  as  they  prove  the  universal 
human  preference  for  the  story  above 
all  other  forms  of  writing. 

And  since  this  preference  is  uni- 
versal, why  not  accord  it  the  dignity  it 
deserves  ?  Human  instinct  is  not  to  be 
despised,  and  if  ignorant  and  learned 
alike  feel  the  influence  of  any  force, 
there  can  be  little  doubt  of  its  value. 
Name  the  ten  great  books  of  the 
world,  and  see  how  many  of  them  are 

229 


How  to  fiction.  Name  fifty  authors  who  are 
secure  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  and 
see  how  many  of  those  who  are  not 
poets  are  novelists,  or  dramatists, 
which  is  the  same  thing.  There  is  no 
more  reason  for  wholesale  condemna- 
tion of  fiction,  or  even  for  an  attitude 
of  condescension  toward  it,  because 
much  that  is  worthless  assumes  that 
form,  than  there  is  for  the  same  atti- 
tude toward  the  essay  because  many 
newspapers  contain  poor  editorials. 

And  speaking  of  newspapers,  why 
is  it  that  the  man,  even  very  much 
above  the  average,  who  mentions  his 
wife's  interest  in  novels  with  a  patron- 
izing smile,  makes  no  apology  for  the 
hours  he  spends  on  the  daily  papers, 
which  are  often  fiction  and  very  poor 
fiction  at  that?  Is  it  possible  that 
reading  the  production  of  crude  young 
reporters,  whose  desire  for  sensation 
is  greater  than  their  love  for  truth, 
and  whose  literary  style  is  a  mixture 
of  modern  slang  and  ancient  plati- 
tudes, is  a  virile  and  strengthening  oc- 
cupation, whereas  perusing  the  works 

230 


of   Howells   and  James,   Hardy  and   HOW  to 
Meredith,  not  to  mention  Thackeray, 
Scott,  Dickens,  George  Eliot,  Perez 
Galdos,  Tolstoi,  Balzac,  Kielland,  Gia- 
cosa,  is  enervating  and  effeminate? 

I  am  willing  to  allow  that  a  man 
may  succeed  in  life  without  being  a 
novel-reader,  but  I  am  very  certain 
that  he  will  not  fully  enjoy  his  suc- 
cess. All  the  thoroughly  happy  peo- 
ple I  have  known  read  novels.  Their 
happiness  may  not  have  resulted  en- 
tirely from  their  choice  of  literature, 
but  admitting  that  it  did  not,  the  con- 
clusion is  untouched  that  the  novel- 
reading  temperament  is  the  happy 
temperament.  Of  course  one  now  and 
then  meets  an  unhappy  reader  of  fic- 
tion. But  this  human  phenomenon  is 
no  doubt  saved  from  suicidal  misery 
by  his  one  redeeming  interest.  Or  it 
may  be  he  reads  merely  to  write  re- 
views. 

All  this  is  easy  to  explain.  In  a 
world  of  mystery,  a  willy-nilly  exist- 
ence unsolved  and  unsolvable,  the  in- 
dividual who  cannot  find  amusement 

231 


How  to    in  the  antics  of  his  fellow-creatures, 

Read  Fiction     whQ   takeg   himself   and   them   forever 


seriously,  who  refuses  to  be  pleased  by 
the  spectacle,  who  is  persistently 
strenuous,  who  cannot  enjoy  seeing 
others  do  what  he  does  not  enjoy  do- 
ing —  this  perfectly  reliable  and  doubt- 
less praiseworthy  and  useful  citizen  is 
not,  I  regret  to  say,  a  happy  man. 

Virtue  is  no  doubt  its  own  reward, 
but  different  virtues  have  different  re- 
wards; and  since  we  cannot  make 
society  do  as  we  wish,  the  next  best 
thing  is  to  study  its  habits,  observe  its 
evolution,  and  convince  ourselves  that 
the  moral  as  well  as  the  physical  world 
moves,  and  always  onward. 

To  try  fiction  by  human  life  is 
valuable  mental  exercise.  It  lends  a 
new  zest  both  to  reading  and  to  exist- 
ence, and  this  fact  explains  the  readi- 
ness with  which  the  cultivated  turn 
from  any  abstraction  to  discuss  the 
novel.  Those  who  are  wont  to  con- 
sider such  conversation  trifling  would 
do  well  to  stop  and  question.  The  art 
of  living  is  of  universal  importance 

232 


and  interest.  An  unwritten  law  for-  How  to 
bids  you  and  me  publicly  to  criticize 
our  neighbor's  private  life;  but  public 
opinion  on  private  affairs  is  an  abso- 
lute necessity  for  the  advance  and  se- 
curity of  morals.  All  discussions  of 
human  life  as  portrayed  by  the  high- 
est art  in  fiction  are  in  reality  discus- 
sions of  life  itself,  and  belong  there- 
fore to  the  natural  and  proper  study 
of  mankind. 

Many  and  diverse  reasons  have 
been  advanced  to  account  for  the  pre- 
ponderance of  women  among  novel 
readers.  Candidly,  I  am  not  certain 
that  they  are  in  the  majority,  but  the 
assertion  is  so  common  that  we  have 
learned  to  accept  it  as  true.  Just  how 
the  statistics  have  been  collected  or 
who  has  done  the  collecting  no  one 
knows.  If  in  public  libraries,  one 
must  bear  in  mind  that  as  men  are 
otherwise  employed  during  the  day 
women  procure  books  for  them  as  well 
as  for  themselves.  Allowing  however 
that  the  statement  is  correct,  may  it 
not  grow  out  of  the  fact  that  men  have 

233 


How  to  been  more  occupied  with  the  business 
of  making  a  living  than  with  the  art 
of  living;  and  is  it  not  another  evi- 
dence that  the  social  conscience  is 
rather  too  largely  feminine?  Instead 
of  treating  it  as  a  feminine  weakness  I 
am  disposed  to  regard  it  as  a  mascu- 
line limitation. 

Speaking  frankly  of  the  difference 
in  the  conversation  of  cultivated  men 
and  women,  I  have  found  that  one 
must  keep  very  close  to  material 
facts  to  insure  a  man's  interest,  while 
women  discuss  principles,  usually 
through  the  medium  of  fiction.  Men 
that  read  novels  are  almost  without 
exception  conversationally  delightful. 

No  one  can  read  fiction  properly 
who  is  not  appreciative  of  the  writer's 
art.  To  read  for  the  story  alone  is  like 
eating  to  satisfy  hunger  with  no  sense 
of  taste.  These  are  the  readers  who 
if  they  are  frivolous  minded  mourn  be- 
cause a  tale  does  not  "turn  out  well," 
or  because  it  does  not  point  a  moral  if 
they  are  serious.  It  is  very  bad  art 
that  has  to  label  itself,  and  human  life, 

234 


to  teach  no  lesson,  must  be  very  im-  How  to 
perfectly  represented.  As  a  writer's 
own  morals  are  best  displayed  by  his 
character,  the  morals  of  his  book  are 
best  taught  by  his  characters;  if  his 
concern  is  not  with  them  but  with 
preaching,  let  him  lay  down  his  pen 
and  enter  the  pulpit. 

Delight  in  the  novelist's  art  is  not 
acquired  in  a  day,  but  this  should  not 
make  it  the  less  worth  acquiring.  If 
after  zealous  effort  there  are  those  to 
whom  it  does  not  come  they  must,  I 
suppose,  continue  to  read  for  the 
story,  as  there  are  those  to  whom 
music  is  only  tune,  poetry  rhyme  and 
painting  color.  I  can  only  extend  to 
these  unfortunates  my  commiseration, 
even  though  I  hold  them  in  part  re- 
sponsible for  the  modern  historical 
novel  which  was  invented,  but  unfor- 
tunately never  patented,  to  meet  their 
demands. 


235 


THE  HISTORICAL  NOVEL 

There  is  a  prevalent  but  erroneous 
belief  that  people  read  books  because 
they  like  them.  Just  how  a  person  can 
like  a  book  before  he  has  read  it  no  one 
seems  to  inquire.  Manifestly  people 
do  many  things,  among  them  read 
books,  to  find  whether  they  like  them 
or  not.  And  yet,  curiously  enough, 
when  we  learn  from  the  pages  of  an 
entirely  unbiased  periodical  published 
by  the  publishers  of  the  work  in  ques- 
tion, that  several  hundred  thou- 
sand copies  of  "The  Swashbuckler's 
Sword/5  a  romance  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  have  been  ordered  in  ad- 
vance; and  later  that  these  copies 
have  all  been  sold  and  the  public  is 
loudly  clamoring  for  more  —  we  in- 
stantly decide  that  several  hundred 
thousand  readers  have  pronounced  the 
book  a  success.  And  when  to  this  evi- 
dence of  popularity  there  is  added  a 

236 


half-tone  of  the  unknown  author  in  his  The 
study,  or  on  his  bicycle,  or  in  his 
mother's  arms,  being  a  modest  people 
and  democratic  withal,  we  graciously 
submit  to  the  voice  of  the  majority 
and  proceed  to  read  his  book. 

The  chances  are  that  we  find  it 
very  bad.  But  remembering  that  sev- 
eral hundred  thousand  of  our  fellow- 
citizens  have  liked  it,  we  crush  out  any 
lingering  traces  of  taste  we  may  pos- 
sess and  complete  our  task.  The  next 
month  we  have  our  reward  in  being 
included  in  another  group  of  six  fig- 
ures that  has  added  its  voice  to  the 
public  clamor  for  this  new  and  "epoch- 
making"  work  of  art.  The  book  has 
become  what  the  trade  calls,  some- 
what ambiguously,  "a  phenomenal 
seller."  Undoubtedly  "The  Swash- 
buckler's Sword"  sells.  I  know  this 
from  personal  experience,  having  fre- 
quently been  a  victim. 

It  is  evident  therefore  that  the  rea- 
son why  anyone  reads  a  book  for  the 
first  time  is  not  that  he  likes  it  but 
that  somebody  else  likes  it.  Of  course, 

237 


The  having  begun,  he  is  under  no  obliga- 
iSNovel  tion  to  finish;  but  if  he  finds  it  very 
dull  his  curiosity  is  piqued  to  find 
what  so  many  others  have  found  inter- 
esting; or  his  vanity  is  touched  for 
fear  it  may  be  too  good  for  his  limited 
appreciation;  or,  being  an  American 
and  unaccustomed  to  defeat,  he  makes 
his  way  through  it  in  spite  of  obsta- 
cles, merely  because  he  was  foolish 
enough  to  begin. 

In  the  matter  of  books  at  least,  it 
by  no  means  follows  that  the  public 
likes  what  it  takes;  what  it  does  is  to 
take  what  it  can  get;  and  just  at  pres- 
ent it  can  get  the  historical  novel.  The 
ingenuity  and  talent  of  numerous 
writers  is  being  employed  in  the  ap- 
plication of  the  story-form  to  history. 
The  result  is  neither  art  nor  truth,  and 
instead  of  being  called  historical  fic- 
tion might  much  more  properly  be 
styled  fictitious  history. 

To  speak  disrespectfully  of  any 
historical  romance  of  the  past  few 
years  savors  of  the  impropriety  that 
attaches  to  censure  of  the  newly  dead. 

238 


But  without  in  any  way  underrating   The 
the  ability,  the  industry,  the  sincerity 
of  purpose  that  have  gone  into  this 
form  of  writing,  we  may  be  allowed 
to  lament  their  misdirection. 

Fiction  should  be  true,  and  to  this 
end  it  should  keep  clear  of  the  truth; 
but  above  all  things  it  should  keep 
clear  of  that  kind  of  truth  that  comes 
to  the  writer  by  hearsay  rather  than 
experience.  The  fiction  that  faith- 
fully represents  the  life  of  today,  sim- 
ple as  it  may  appear  to  the  reader,  is 
by  far  the  most  difficult  of  production. 
This  fact  alone  will  account  for  the 
readiness  with  which  many  writers, 
some  of  whom  are  capable  of  better 
things,  have  allowed  themselves  to  be 
drawn  away  from  their  legitimate  art 
to  the  making  of  tales  concerning  the 
truth  or  falsity  of  which  there  can  be 
no  test.  The  reliable  critic  of  the  his- 
torical novel  died  before  it  was  born; 
neither  its  writer  nor  its  critic  of  today 
knows  whereof  he  affirms. 

The  claim  of  the  novel  to  perma- 
nence rests  first  of  all  upon  the  name- 

239 


The  less  human  element  to  which  all  hu- 
18 Novel  mankind  responds;  but  there  is  an- 
other and  equally  legitimate  claim  in 
the  veracity  of  the  picture  of  social  life 
which  it  presents.  In  this  each  age 
must  answer  for  itself.  One  hundred 
years  hence  who  will  care  what  we  of 
today  have  fancied  about  society  in 
the  seventeenth  century?  Yet  witness 
the  interest  that  still  attaches  to  the 
pictures  of  English  life  given  by  Field- 
ing, Jane  Austen  and  even  Miss  Bur- 
ney  in  their  day. 

Far  better  that  the  talent  of  our 
own  time  should  set  about  saving  us 
from  the  ruthless  pens  of  the  twenty- 
third  century,  which  may  otherwise 
justly  decide  that  the  opening  of  the 
twentieth  century  has  never  been  ade- 
quately represented  and  proceed  to 
travesty  us  as  we  deserve. 

The  novelist  that  cannot  make  his 
own  time  interesting,  that  can  find  no 
phase  of  life  upon  which  to  throw  his 
light,  makes  public  confession  of  fail- 
ure by  turning  to  the  past.  Now  and 
then  he  does  it  to  display  his  versa- 

240 


tility,  but  oftener  I  think  he  does  it   The 
because  it  is  easier  to  do,  or  because   Novel"0 
there  are  others  doing  it,  or  because 
he  chooses  to  call  the  public  willing- 
ness to  buy  a  demand. 

The  genuine  novel  of  any  time  is  a 
valuable  document,  a  contribution  to 
history;  but  the  modern  historical 
novel  throws  about  as  much  light  up- 
on the  life  of  the  past  as  a  fancy  dress 
ball.  That  it  will  not  long  prevail 
goes  without  saying,  for  a  certain 
American  public  requires  as  frequent 
changes  in  its  fiction  as  in  its  break- 
fast-foods, and  selects  both  by  the 
same  method  —  from  advertisements. 

In  our  youth  there  were  publica- 
tions called  yellow-back  novels,  in 
which  pirates  and  banditti,  wild  In- 
dians and  highwaymen,  curdled  the 
blood  to  that  consistency  which  youth 
seems  to  find  thrilling;  and  now  that 
we  are  old,  or  at  least  older,  we  have 
the  historical  romance,  which  invites 
us  to  slide  about  on  decks  slippery 
with  gore,  witness  the  most  excruci- 
ating tortures  and  wade  after  the  hero 

241 


The    through  rivers  of  blood  until  he  clasps 

Historical     ,t       r    •     ,.         «  •  ,  .          , 

Novei  the  fainting  heroine  in  his  velvet  arms 
slashed  with  satin,  and  declares  his 
love  in  twentieth  century  English 
mixed  with  seventeenth  century 
slang. 

No  amount  of  study,  of  hunting 
over  libraries  or  delving  into  musty 
volumes  will  acquaint  one  with  more 
than  the  husk  of  the  life  once  lived. 
The  atmosphere  of  that  life  perished 
with  it.  And  as  the  true  novel  is  a 
selection  of  detail  by  one  permeated 
with  the  life  of  which  it  is  the  mani- 
festation, the  time  that  produces  no 
adequate  chronicler  must  go  un- 
chronicled. 

If,  even  in  our  time,  the  writer  of 
one  nation  finds  it  quite  impossible  by 
study,  and  well-nigh  impossible  by 
long  residence,  to  take  on  the  atmos- 
phere of  another  civilization  which  is 
at  his  very  door,  how  shall  he  do  any- 
thing with  that  which  is  gone? 

Our  own  Spanish-American  life  in 
Southern  California,  a  life  full  of  ro- 
mance and  adventure,  has  never  yet 

242 


been  adequately  reproduced  in  fiction ;   The 
and  until  there  arise  among  the  people   Novel"0 
who  by  birth  and  tradition  are  a  part 
of  that  life,  an  artist  to  portray  it,  it 
must  and  should  remain  untouched. 
We  know  much  of  it  from  the  records 
available;  what  we  do  not  know  we 
can  never  learn  from  tampering  with 
those  records. 

There  is  far  too  much  written  in 
these  days  of  ready  pens  and  eager 
readers;  and  as  it  is  not  the  number 
who  are  reading  a  book,  but  the  num- 
ber who  will  reread  it  that  establishes 
its  claim  to  our  regard,  most  of  us  will, 
I  think,  find  life  simplified  when  the 
historical  romance  becomes  what  in 
spite  of  its  pretensions  it  has  never 
been  —  a  thing  of  the  past. 


243 


WHAT  IS  AN  IMMORAL 
NOVEL? 

The  day  of  cocksureness  in  morals 
is  long  past,  and  yet  morals  remain 
even  more  secure  than  ever.  We  are 
slowly  disentangling  them  from  pre- 
judice and  tradition.  "It  is  written" 
is  giving  place  to  "it  is  for  the  greatest 
good."  In  some  respects  these  two 
were  never  at  war,  since  many  things 
that  were  written  were  for  the  great- 
est good,  and  were  written  for  that 
reason.  Men  will  differ  as  to  the  great- 
est good,  but  not  more  widely  than 
they  have  differed  as  to  the  meaning 
of  what  was  written. 

The  time  will  not  come  when  even 
the  best  of  fiction  will  be  the  best  for 
all  the  world  to  read  at  all  times. 
Character  is  not  always  affected  in  the 
same  way  by  the  same  influences,  and 
a  book  may  be  therefore  baneful  to 
one  reader  and  harmless  even  if  not 

244 


strictly   beneficial   to   another.      The   What  is  an 
crude  mind  is  of  course  more  easily 
duped  than  the  sophisticated,  and  this 
is  true  elsewhere  than  in  the  world  of 
letters. 

It  is  not  likely  for  instance  that 
parents  will  ever  agree  as  to  the  exact 
time  and  way  of  acquainting  their 
children  and  youth  with  the  facts  of 
life.  For  this  reason  certain  books 
must  always  remain  objectionable  to 
those  parents  who  are  too  indolent 
mentally  to  inform  themselves  and 
control  their  children,  and  who  want 
society  to  do  their  work.  Religious 
instruction  they  have  delegated  to  the 
Sunday-school,  literature  they  have 
turned  over  to  the  public  school,  and 
morals  they  would  like  to  commit  to 
the  care  of  the  public  librarian,  asking 
her  to  have  nothing  on  the  shelves 
that  their  young  people  are  not  ready 
to  read,  digest  and  assimilate  —  thus 
reducing  the  duty  of  parents  to  the 
payment  of  taxes. 

Much  has  been  said  concerning  the 
domination  of  the  Young  Person,  par- 

245 


What  is  an  ticularly  the  ubiquitous  young  wo- 
ImNovei  man,  over  our  fiction.  Most  of  this 
has  been  said  by  writers  who  intimate 
that  they  would  like  to  be  much  more 
immoral  than  they  are,  and  few  of 
whom  could  be.  No  real  artist 
troubles  himself  greatly  about  his 
public;  insofar  as  he  does  he  is  pan- 
dering to  something  lower  than  art. 
An  author  who  loves  his  fellow-men 
will  not  hurt  them.  The  author  who 
loves  himself,  his  fame,  his  greed,  his 
glory,  will  do  as  other  men  do  who 
love  themselves  better  than  others. 
Novel-writing  is  today  a  business  with 
many  people,  just  as  much  a  business 
as  money-lending,  real-estate  and  in- 
surance. It  bears  in  many  cases  no 
more  relation  to  literature  than  those 
industries.  We  are  paying  the  pen- 
alty of  having  taught  the  wayfaring 
man,  though  a  fool,  to  read.  He  cla- 
mors for  what  he  likes;  he  (or  should 
we  say  she?)  stands  with  his  dollar  in 
sight  asking  for  excitement,  just  as  he 
begs  for  sporting  news,  prize-fights, 
vaudeville  and  scandal  of  the  daily 

246 


newspapers;   and  he  gets  it  because   What  is  an 
those  who  have  it  to  sell  want  the  dol- 
lar,  or,  seeing  his  dollar,  they  imagine 
his  want  and  as  soon  as  may  be  sup- 
ply it. 

These  things  do  not  indicate  that 
public  taste  is  lower  than  it  once  was. 
Public  taste  was  always  bad.  They 
simply  prove  that  public  expression  of 
bad  taste  has  become  common.  If  the 
Young  Person  is  any  check  on  this  we 
should  welcome  instead  of  deplore  it. 
But  that  he,  or  perhaps  again  I  should 
say  she,  is  a  check  upon  the  highest 
forms  of  fiction  is  absurd. 

As  one  sin  differeth  from  another 
in  the  minds  of  men,  a  given  book  will 
seem  more  or  less  injurious  according 
to  the  reader's  perspective.  It  is  not 
the  knowledge  of  evil  that  makes  us 
do  wrong,  but  an  erroneous  idea  of  the 
relations  of  things.  Hence  a  book  that 
distorts  our  vision  is  immoral. 

There  is  great  difficulty  in  procur- 
ing accurate  moral  statistics,  but  I 
have  little  doubt  that  a  great  injury 
has  been  wrought  socially  by  the  over- 

247 


What  is  an  supply  of  fiction  concerning  the  very 
mNovel  ricn  and  the  very  poor,  perhaps  more 
by  the  former  than  the  latter.  To  my 
surprise  I  learned  a  short  time  since, 
from  what  I  believe  to  be  a  reliable 
source,  that  only  ten  ,  per  cent  of 
American  families  keep  even  one 
servant.  I  immediately  set  about 
accounting  for  my  surprise,  and,  com- 
paring the  statement  with  my  knowl- 
edge of  the  life  around  me,  was  as- 
sured of  its  correctness.  My  surprise 
arose  I  am  convinced  from  the  preval- 
ence of  the  very  rich,  or  perhaps  not 
the  very  rich  but  the  comfortable,  in 
American  fiction.  I  ran  over  the  cur- 
rent magazines  and  found  fully  nine- 
tenths  of  the  fiction  dealing  with  the 
servant-keeping  class,  and  entirely 
too  large  a  proportion  of  these  be- 
longed to  those  keeping  a  large  num- 
ber of  servants. 

Such  misleading  pictures  may  not 
seem  immoral  in  any  large  sense,  but 
I  fancy  the  effect  is  bad.  There  are 
countless  immoral  tendencies  in  the 
hopes  and  aspirations  excited  by  this 

248 


false  estimate  of  society  on  the  part  of   What  is  an 
those  who  get  from  novels  their  idea 
of  life  beyond  their  own  narrow  ex- 
periences. 

Furthermore,  not  all  the  facts  of 
life  are  worthy  of  a  place  in  literature 
as  they  are  not  worthy  of  a  place  in 
conversation,  and  the  dignifying  of 
them  by  giving  them  this  prominence 
is  a  sin  against  the  true  principles  of 
art.  The  mere  writing  about  some 
things  undeniably  true  makes  them 
unduly  large  on  the  canvas  of  life. 
Perhaps  it  is  the  number  of  books  on 
illicit  love  which  is  immoral,  rather 
than  their  character. 

Women  are  accused  (whether 
rightfully  or  not  I  leave  you  to  deter- 
mine) of  laying  too  much  stress,  in 
their  definition  of  morality,  on  the  re- 
lations of  men  and  women.  If  they 
do,  it  is  doubtless  because  the  whole 
burden  of  these  relations  has  been  laid 
upon  them,  and  naturally  they  over- 
estimate the  one  sin  that  costs  them  so 
dear  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  and  the 
one  virtue  committed,  however  un- 

249 


What  is  an  justly,  to  their  especial  care.  I  do  not 
mNovei  intend,  however,  to  confine  the  word 
immorality  to  this  narrow,  as  some 
would  say,  this  feminine  sense.  But 
that  there  are  a  large  number  of  novels 
dealing  with  this  phase  of  evil  we  are 
all  unhappily  aware. 

At  the  risk  of  irrelevance,  I  wish  to 
say  what  I  have  been  saying  at  inter- 
vals for  twenty  years  without  percep- 
tible effect  on  public  opinion  —  that 
women  are  quite  as  just  to  women  as 
men  are  to  men.  They  are  indeed  just 
to  women  where  men  are  lax  in  their 
judgment.  Women,  it  is  true,  do  not 
make  excuses  for  certain  sins  among 
women  because  they  know  that  such 
excuses  are  maudlin  sentimentality. 
Men  excuse  and  defend  each  other,  are 
"loyal"  to  each  other  as  they  call  it, 
because  no  one  of  them  knows  when 
he  may  need  the  good  offices  of  his  sex 
in  his  own  defense.  And  men  are  ab- 
surdly lenient  to  women,  "charitable" 
they  call  it,  because  those  among  them 
who  attempt  to  be  fair  to  women  try 
them  by  their  own  standard,  which 

250 


I    regret    to    say   is   not   all   that   it   What  is  an 
should  be. 

I  am  aware  that  women  are  hard 
toward  certain  forms  of  evil  among 
women,  and  I  am  rather  glad  that  this 
is  so.  It  is  no  doubt  what  has  made  us 
so  very,  very  good.  If  we  are  to  be- 
lieve men,  who  are  constantly  telling 
us  how  virtuously  superior  we  are  to 
them,  our  plan  with  women  has  cer- 
tainly worked  better  than  theirs  with 
men.  Possibly  the  sauce  that  has 
made  of  woman  such  a  highly  moral 
and  delicious  goose  might  make  of 
man  an  equally  moral  and  delectable 
gander.  The  experiment  is  certainly 
worth  trying. 

Returning  from  this  digression,  let 
me  quote  Mr.  W.  H.  Mallock,  who 
whatever  his  faults  cannot  be  accused 
of  being  either  a  flippant  or  thought- 
less writer.  In  his  introduction  to  "A 
Human  Document"  he  says:  "I  believe 
that  any  picture  of  life  if  only  com- 
plete so  far  as  its  subject  goes  will  be 
sure  to  convey  some  moral  or  other, 
though  what  that  moral  is  may  vary 

251 


What  is  an  with  the  minds  that  look  at  it.  It  will 
mNovel  m  anv  case  be  sounder  than  any  that 
could  be  conveyed  by  illustrations 
manipulated  for  the  special  purpose  of 
conveying  it;  and  a  complete  auto- 
biography of  the  conscience  of  a  single 
profligate,  were  such  a  thing  possible, 
would  teach  us  more  than  a  dozen  de- 
scriptions of  the  selected  pieties  of 
saints.  Finally,  if  the  book  is  com- 
plained of  because  people  who  are  not 
technically  virtuous  are  shown  in  it  to 
have  been  ultimately  happy,  as  such 
people  often  are,  I  would  point  out 
that  their  happiness,  such  as  it  is,  re- 
sults from  qualities  in  them  which 
everyone  must  admire,  and  not  from 
those  of  their  actions,  which  perhaps 
most  people  will  condemn." 

One  reads  such  opinions  as  this 
with  a  feeling  of  being  in  moral  quick- 
sand, and  yet  the  writer  is  unques- 
tionably correct  when  he  says  that 
those  who  do  wrong — that  is,  your 
wrong  and  my  wrong — are  frequently 
happy.  But  if  we  stop  here  in  our  an- 
alysis, the  bulwark  of  our  plea  for 

252 


moral  fiction  goes  to  the  enemy.  We  What  is  an 
have  so  long  insisted  that  evil  deeds  — 
which  means  of  course  what  we  con- 
sider such  —  should  be  represented  as 
bringing  their  own  punishment  (a  re- 
sult that  makes  the  recital  of  all  im- 
morality strictly  moral)  that  we  lose 
the  very  ground  from  under  our  feet 
before  Mr.  Mallock's  bold  statement. 
But  is  it  not,  after  all,  merely  a  ques- 
tion of  standards?  Doing  evil  —  your 
evil  —  brings  you  unhappiness;  not  in 
the  world's  eyes  perhaps,  for  the  world 
may  be  ignorant  of  your  sin,  but  in  re- 
morse. But,  once  convinced  that 
what  you  do  is  right,  even  by  mistaken 
reasoning,  remorse  vanishes  and  hap- 
piness is  as  likely  to  ensue  as  unhap- 
piness. 

Take  the  case  of  George  Eliot  and 
George  Lewes.  Few  of  us  care  to  say 
more  about  it  than  that  we  are  glad  of 
a  life,  however  averse  to  it  all  our  tra- 
ditions and  prejudices,  that  unques- 
tionably gave  us  the  fruits  of  a  rare 
and  remarkable  genius.  Most  of  us 
perhaps  have  no  fault  to  find  with  it 

253 


What  is  an  morally,  however  reluctant  we  may  be 
mNovei  to  announce  the  fact,  but  none  of  us 
can  deny  that  outwardly  at  least  it 
was  a  peaceful,  congenial  and  happy 
life.  If  inwardly  it  was  otherwise,  it 
must  have  been  from  remorse,  which 
we  have  nothing  to  indicate  that 
either  suffered. 

We  all  have  the  test  of  reality,  of 
correct  proportion,  at  hand.  Life  sur- 
rounds us.  The  fiction  that  helps  us 
to  look  at  it  steadily,  that  makes  our 
vision  sane  and  clear,  is  good  fiction, 
no  matter  what  it  deals  with.  For 
there  is  nothing  in  human  life,  sin- 
cerely and  artistically  dealt  with,  that 
is  uninteresting,  as  there  is  nothing  in 
nature  beneath  the  notice  of  the  sci- 
entist. 

We  all  have  the  test  of  life  at  hand, 
but  just  why  we  shrink  from  applying 
it  to  our  fiction  no  one  knows.  For 
example,  a  recent  and  much  discussed 
novel  makes  a  young  woman  of  re- 
ligious, perhaps  superstitious  tradi- 
tions, correct  life,  good  instincts  — 
indeed  a  young  woman  whom  the  au- 

254 


thor  evidently  admires  and  expects  What  is  an 
the  reader  to  admire  — deliberately 
decide  to  fling  aside  all  the  restraints 
amid  which  she  has  been  reared —  re- 
spectability, virtue,  religious  teaching, 
love  of  kindred  —  for  a  man  whose 
conduct  toward  her  has  been  cowardly 
and  for  whom  she  feels,  passion  per- 
haps, but  not  the  worship  and  confi- 
dence which  alone  would  ennoble  and 
dignify  that  passion.  She  is  saved 
from  this  sacrifice  of  herself,  saved 
outwardly  that  is,  but  ruined  all  the 
same,  by  what  has  existed  from  the 
beginning — her  brother's  love. 

Now  how  many  good  girls,  even 
moderately  good  girls,  have  you  and 
I  known  who  would  calmly  entertain 
such  intentions  as  are  put  into  the 
mind  of  this  young  woman,  in  the  face 
of  tradition,  kindred,  religious  train- 
ing and  conscience?  She  was  not  de- 
ceived, her  eyes  were  open,  she  delib- 
erately chose  evil,  and  not  'only  evil 
but  disgrace.  And  yet  the  writer 
thinks  and  wishes  us  to  think  her  a 
noble  woman. 

255 


What  is  an  Higher  in  the  realm  of  fiction  of 
mNovei  late  another  young  woman  delib- 
erately chooses  shame  for  love  of  a 
craven  lover,  and  is  saved  from  bodily 
sin  by  a  good  young  man  who  tells  her 
that  her  grandfather  is  very  ill.  As  if 
the  illness  of  grandfathers  were  not  an 
every-day  occurrence,  the  restraining 
influence  of  which,  to  a  woman  bent 
upon  evil,  would  be  but  a  straw. 

These  women,  instantaneously 
converted  or  perverted,  are  the  card- 
board-grasshoppers of  which  Mr. 
Howells  writes:  "so  much  easier  to 
handle  than  the  real  thing,  quieter  un- 
der the  literary  microscope,  skilfully 
colored,  portable  and,  it  would  seem, 
practically  indestructible.  No  doubt 
writers  will  continue  to  use  them,  as 
they  do  great  wealth  and  other  stage- 
properties,  so  long  as  the  bulk  of  read- 
ers prefer  to  read  of  what  seems  mys- 
terious to  them." 

After  all,  we  have  made  too  little  oi 
genius  in  the  reader.  He  needs  it  al- 
most as  much  as  the  writer.  It  is  not 
given  to  many  of  us  really  to  love  life 

256 


—  poor  everyday  life,   the  life  upon   What  is  an 
which  we  depend  for  happiness.     But 
to  read  aright  we  must  love  it,  guard  it 
jealously,  and  cry  out  when  it  is  fal- 
sified. 


257 


IF  I  WERE 

At  first  I  thought  of  calling  this 
paper  "The  Reflections  of  an  Inca- 
pacitated Reformer,"  and  even  now  it 
is  not  my  intention  to  leave  any  mat- 
ter untouched  upon.  When  one  has 
industriously  followed  for  a  long  time 
the  business  of  reforming  the  world, 
it  is  really  a  great  relief  to  be  tem- 
porarily laid  upon  the  shelf.  To  awake 
every  morning  knowing  that  society  is 
going  to  the  dogs,  but  that  you,  at 
least,  cannot  be  expected  to  do  any- 
thing to  prevent  it;  to  lie  quietly  in 
bed  and  think,  "Now  if  I  were  well  I 
should  never  allow  things  to  go  on  in 
this  way,  but  being  ill  I  am  obliged  to 
trust  in  Providence" — is  certainly,  as 
the  ladies  say,  "restful."  And  it  is 
gratifying  to  notice  that  as  you  get  a 
little  better  things  do  really  seem  to 
improve,  which  justifies  the  feeling 
that  if  you  were  actually  on  your  legs 

258 


some  sort  of  order  might  be  evolved   if  I  Were 
out  of  the  social  chaos. 

It  is  a  comparatively  easy  matter 
to  manage  the  universe  when  you  are 
on  a  liquid  diet.  The  trouble  begins 
when  you  get  up  and  try  to  attend  to 
your  own  business.  Settling  the  Rus- 
sian-Japanese question  is  simple  com- 
pared with  keeping  ants  out  of  the 
pantry  or  deciding  whether  you  will 
need  three  or  five  loads  of  gravel  for 
the  front  driveway. 

These  facts  lead  one  to  inquire 
whether  all  the  ills  of  life  do  not  arise 
from  having  to  make  up  one's  mind. 
There  is  a  tradition  among  women 
that  when  men  are  very  sick  they  are 
perfectly  angelic.  I  do  not  know 
whether  this  article  of  feminine  belief 
is  known  to  men  or  not,  but  I  trust  I 
am  not  betraying  the  confidence  of  my 
sex  in  thus  explaining  your  wife's 
manifest  alarm  when  you  display  or- 
dinary amiability.  Personally,  I  have 
always  attributed  all  masculine  faults 
of  disposition  to  the  bad  habit  men 
have  of  making  up  their  minds.  I 

259 


If  I  Were—  think  the  correctness  of  my  view  is 
attested  by  the  fact  that  when  they 
are  so  helpless  that  their  minds  are 
made  up  for  them,  they  immediately 
become  docile  and  sweet-tempered. 

Now,  women  have  so  long  been  de- 
prived of  this  privilege  that  it  has  re- 
sulted either  in  their  having  no  minds 
at  all  or  no  ability  to  make  them  up, 
both  of  which  results  are  conducive,  I 
am  convinced,  to  placidity  of  temper. 
And  if  woman  insists,  as  she  has  re- 
cently been  doing,  upon  cultivating 
her  mind,  I  am  very  much  afraid  that 
she  will  go  further  and  insist  on  mak- 
ing it  up;  and  then  alas  for  domestic 
peace  and  unity !  The  only  way  that  I 
can  see  to  avert  this  calamity  is  for 
every  woman  to  make  up  her  mind  not 
to  have  any  mind  of  her  own  to  make 
up;  in  this  way  she  can  retain  her  su- 
premacy and  remain  just  the  sweetest 
thing  on  earth. 

As  for  men,  I  suppose  they  will 
continue  to  value,  for  themselves,  ev- 
ery other  kind  of  ability  above  amia- 
bility; and  we  must  continue  to  de- 

260 


pend  upon  a  chastening  providence  if  I  Were 
for  glimpses  of  their  innate  gentle- 
ness. This  proves  only  that  doing  has 
more  charms  than  being,  unless  in- 
deed it  proves  that  men  do  not,  after 
all,  think  so  highly  of  us  as  they  pre- 
tend, certainly  not  highly  enough  to 
lead  them  to  emulate  our  virtues. 
When  we  consider  how  very  good  and 
superior  we  women  are,  it  is  strange 
that  men  do  not  envy  us  more  openly. 
I  do  not  remember  ever  to  have  heard 
a  man  wish  he  were  a  woman;  and  yet 
I  have  heard  several  men  enlarge  upon 
the  surpassing  excellence  of  womanly 
qualities,  the  wide  nature  of  her  influ- 
ence and  the  superior  advantages  of 
her  position,  expressing  the  deepest 
astonishment,  not  to  say  pain,  that 
she  should  manifest  any  discontent 
with  the  circumstances  in  which 
providence,  with  their  assistance,  has 
placed  her. 

These  hopeless  complications  arise 
from  having  different  standards  of 
conduct  for  the  sexes;  and  yet  it  was 
a  man  who  stirred  up  all  the  excite- 

261 


if  I  Were-  ment  about  The  Simple  Life.  True, 
women  had  been  working  at  the  prob- 
lem for  a  long  time;  they  have  tried 
to  be  as  simple  as  men  could  desire. 
All  they  have  been  anxious  to  know 
was  how  to  get  rid  of  the  hope- 
less complexities  man's  industry  has 
brought  about.  And  now  to  have  a 
man  arise  and  urge  simplicity  upon 
us,  without  telling  us  what  it  is  or 
how  to  obtain  it,  is  rather  trying. 

Life  was  complex  enough  before 
this  problem  of  simplicity  was  added 
to  it;  but  since  it  has  been  added,  we 
must  resolutely  set  ourselves  to  solve 
it.  Thus  far,  Mr.  Dooley  seems  to 
have  offered  the  only  logical  way  out 
of  the  difficulty;  his  advice  to  Hen- 
nessy  is,  "Ef  yer  poor,  Hennessy,  be 
simply  poor"  (which  most  of  us  have 
tried  and  found  perfectly  practicable) 
"an*  ef  yer  rich,  be  simply  rich" — 
which  might  not  prove  as  easy,  but 
which  most  of  us  would  be  willing  to 
attempt. 

Simplicity,  then,  is  a  state  of  mind 
and  not  a  state  of  society.  Complex- 

262 


ity  is  inevitable,  and  honest  complexity  if  I  Were- 
is  not  a  matter  for  regret.  It  is  the 
artificial  complications  with  which  we 
daily  surround  ourselves  that  embar- 
rass our  lives.  We  are  afraid  to  be 
honest;  it  does  not  seem  to  us  to  be 
the  best  policy.  We  are  afraid  to  like 
what  we  like  for  fear  it  is  not  what 
we  ought  to  like.  The  simple  people 
are  those  who  have  confidence  in  their 
own  instincts,  or,  as  Herbert  Spencer 
would  have  said,  who  do  not  have  to 
vindicate  the  veracity  of  their  primi- 
tive convictions. 

Knowledge  is  too  widely  dissemi- 
nated for  individual  comfort.  We 
have  too  many  sources  of  informa- 
tion, too  many  Sunday  Supplements, 
too  many  Answers  to  Correspondents, 
too  many  columns  of  What  Men 
Ought  to  Wear.  Why,  I  learned  the 
other  day  that  "no  gentleman  could 
hope  to  find  tasteful  cravats  or  indeed 
anything  individual  and  desirable  in 
men's  furnishings  and  neck-wear  at 
the  retail  haberdashers;  he  must  have 
them  made  to  order  to  match  his 

263 


If  I  Were—  suit" !  And  I  had  been  gazing  admir- 
ingly at  these  articles  as  displayed  in 
the  shop-windows;  and  no  doubt  some 
misguided  reader  hereof  has  bought 
and  is  at  this  moment  wearing,  in  sub- 
lime ignorance  of  his  mistake  and  no 
doubt  with  some  pride  in  his  taste,  a 
necktie  (which  he  does  not  even  know 
enough  to  know  should  not  be  called  a 
necktie)  bought  at  a  haberdasher's! 
Of  course,  now  that  I  have  told  him  of 
his  benighted  condition  he  will  find  a 
new  complexity  added  to  his  life.  He 
will  perhaps  continue  to  frequent  the 
gentleman's  furnishing-goods  depart- 
ment, but  he  will  sidle  in  when  I  am 
not  looking;  and  if  I  come  upon  him 
suddenly  he  will  assume  a  wearied  air 
as  if  he  were  waiting  for  his  wife  at 
the  dress-goods  counter  —  buying  a 
dress  she  doesn't  like  because  her 
dressmaker  told  her  "it  is  all  the 
rage." 

I  have  always  held  the  doctrine  of 
total  depravity  responsible  for  the 
world's  loss  of  confidence  in  itself. 
Now  of  course  someone  will  suggest 

264 


that  this  doctrine  might  be  an  effect  if  I  Were 
rather  than  a  cause;  but  if  doctrines 
are  merely  effects,  what  is  to  become 
of  religion?  I  am  disposed  therefore 
to  maintain  that  the  belief  in  total  de- 
pravity—  or  as  the  Confession  of 
Faith  puts  it,  "the  original  corruption 
whereby  we  are  utterly  indisposed, 
disabled  and  made  opposite  to  all 
good  and  wholly  inclined  to  all  evil, 
dead  in  sin  and  wholly  denied  in  all 
the  faculties  and  parts  of  soul  and 
body" — is  calculated  to  weaken  one's 
confidence  in  one's  self,  to  make  a  man 
wobbly  not  only  on  his  moral  legs  but 
in  matters  of  taste,  if  indeed  morals 
are  not  also  matters  of  taste.  How 
can  a  man  who  is  dead  in  sin  and 
wholly  defiled  in  all  the  faculties  and 
parts  of  his  soul  and  body  be  expected 
to  trust  his  own  judgment?  Is  it  not 
the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world 
that  he  should  ask  somebody  else? 
And  even  here  his  original  corruption 
whereby  he  is  utterly  indisposed,  dis- 
abled and  made  opposite  to  all  good 
and  wholly  inclined  to  all  evil,  is  likely 

265 


If  I  Were—  to  lead  him  astray.  Ten  chances  to 
one  he  asks  some  other  man  instead 
of  consulting  his  wife. 

And  out  of  all  these  complexities 
that  have  been  ages  in  the  making  we 
are  asked  to  evolve  simplicity!  How 
can  women  be  upright  when  men  have 
sought  out  so  many  inventions  ?  The 
more  ways  you  devise  for  making 
money  the  more  ways  they  must  de- 
vise for  spending  it.  Not  one  person 
in  a  thousand  does  one-tenth  of  the 
things  he  does  because  he  likes  to  do 
them  or  because  he  thinks  the  doing 
of  them  will  make  him  happy.  He 
does  them  because  other  people  do 
them.  Did  people  cease  to  eat  with 
their  knives  or  to  drink  their  tea  from 
their  saucers  because  they  found  it 
more  convenient  to  do  otherwise? 
Were  we  driven  to  the  use  of  finger- 
bowls  because  we  couldn't  get  on 
without  them?  Did  you  stop  eating 
corn  pone  and  pickled  pork  and  lye- 
hominy  because  you  ceased  to  like 
them?  We  have  been  told  that  the 
male  New  Englander  no  longer  has 

266 


pie  for  breakfast.    Do  you  suppose  he   If  I  Were- 
gave  it  up  because  he  wanted  to,  or 
because  his  wife  read  in  "The  Care  of 
the    Body"  that    baldness    could    be 
cured  by  the  no-breakfast  plan? 

No,  very  few  of  us  do  as  we  please 
or  even  as  we  think  best;  we  do  not 
have  what  we  want  even  when  we 
think  we  know  what  it  is;  but  most 
of  us,  according  to  our  ability  and  con- 
science, take  what  we  can  get.  We  all 
have  a  theory  that  we  are  the  victims 
of  necessity.  We  speak  of  "an  inde- 
pendent fortune";  "if  I  were  worth 
so  and  so,"  we  say,  and  make  the  good 
example  we  intend  to  set  when  we 
have  got  it  an  excuse  for  all  sorts  of 
servile  practices  in  the  getting.  We 
are  afraid  to  call  our  souls  our  own,  as 
long  as  they  are  all  we  have;  but  we 
all  mean  to  bring  suit  to  quiet  title 
when  we  have  made  money  enough  to 
pay  the  costs. 

I  don't  know  of  course  how  it  may 
be  with  the  rest  of  you,  but  I  am  well 
aware  that  I  cannot  make  my  life  sim- 
ple because  I  am  a  simpleton.  I  am 

267 


if  I  Were—  morally  certain  that  I  could  success- 
fully run  the  diocese  of  Bishop  J.  and 
the  bank  for  Mr.  P.  and  the  railroad 
for  Supt.  B.,  tell  Mr.  H.  exactly  how 
to  spend  his  money  and  even  success- 
fully adjust  the  love  affairs  of  Dr.  T. 
And  yet  I,  who  stand  ready  and  will- 
ing to  do  all  of  these  things,  am  un- 
able to  make  my  dressmaker,  who  is 
a  meek-appearing  little  woman,  put  a 
watch-pocket  in  my  dress.  I  have  al- 
ways tried  to  keep  a  brave  front  but  I 
fairly  shrivel  up  with  mortified  humil- 
ity when  the  young  woman  behind  the 
counter  looks  me  over  contemptu- 
ously from  under  her  leaning  tower  of 
hair  and  informs  me  that  "there  is  no 
call  whatever"  for  the  thing  I  have 
just  called  for.  And  I  am  almost 
ready  to  venture  the  assertion  that 
there  is  not  a  person  who  would  be 
willing  to  confess  his  real  taste  in 
literature,  to  tell,  not  what  he  likes 
perhaps,  but  what  he  doesn't  like. 

Now  how  can  people  be  simple 
when  they  live  in  constant  dread  of 
detection?  We  are  not  striving  to 

268 


hide  our  guilt  but  our  innocence.  And  if  I  Were- 
right  here  I  should  like  to  inquire  why 
a  thorough  knowledge  of  good  is 
rather  patronizingly  referred  to  as  in- 
nocence, and  an  intimate  and  exten- 
sive acquaintance  with  evil  is  called 
"a  knowledge  of  the  world"?  It  seems 
to  me  that  there  is  about  as  much 
good  as  evil  in  the  world,  and  if  the 
Westminster  Confession  of  Faith  as 
heretofore  quoted  is  correct,  the 
knowledge  of  evil  comes  to  us  rather 
naturally  and  therefore  does  not  en- 
title us  to  great  credit,  while  it  must 
be  uphill  work  and  require  some  con- 
siderable industry,  at  least  for  a  Cal- 
vinist,  to  acquire  any  knowledge  of 
good.  If  that  which  is  difficult  of  at- 
tainment is  valuable,  then  being  good, 
in  other  words  innocent,  ought  to  be 
more  highly  esteemed  than  sophisti- 
cation. Yet  very  few  of  us,  very  few 
men  at  least,  take  pride  in  being  con- 
sidered innocent,  however  -much  they 
may  resent  being  found  guilty. 

I    have    often    wondered    how    I 
should  feel  if  I  were  Mr.  Rockefeller 

269 


if  I  Were—  and  had  all  the  moral  health-officers  of 
the  country  sniffing  around  my  prem- 
ises to  discover  whether  my  money 
was  good  enough  to  convert  the 
heathen.  Now  if  the  heathen  were  to 
send  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  to 
the  Board  of  Home  Missions  to  con- 
vert Mr.  Rockefeller  I  should  consider 
it  their  duty  to  take  it  and  make  the 
attempt.  I  am  afraid  they  would  not 
succeed,  but  it  would  not,  in  my  opin- 
ion, be  because  the  money  was  tainted 
but  because  there  was  not  enough 
of  it. 

Talking  of  tainted  money,  what 
are  you  good  men  going  to  do  about 
the  money  paid  into  the  city  treasury 
for  saloon  licenses  ?  Aren't  you  afraid 
it  is  tainted?  I  mean  of  course  those 
of  you  that  think  the  saloon  is  very 
bad  for  men  but  good  for  business. 

The  question  of  what  money  has 
been  doing  before  it  comes  to  us  has 
about  as  much  to  do  with  our  duty 
concerning  it  as  our  condition  in  a 
previous  incarnation  has  to  do  with 
our  duty  in  the  present.  If  I  were  a 

270 


college  president  I  wouldn't  go  about  if  I  Were 
coaxing  for  ill-gotten  gain;  I  should 
try  to  make  my  institution  stand  for 
everything  that  seemed  to  me  pro- 
gressive, and  if  anybody  offered  me 
assistance  I  should  take  it  for  granted 
that  my  methods  met  with  his  ap- 
proval no  matter  what  his  own  might 
have  been,  and  I  should  take  great 
pleasure  in  rescuing  his  millions  from 
misuse  and  devoting  them  to  my  own 
wise  purposes. 

Men  have  nervous  prostration  from 
trying  to  improve  their  circumstances, 
but  women  have  it  from  trying  to  im- 
prove themselves.  Of  course  no  wo- 
man likes  to  do  what  men  don't  like 
to  have  her  do,  and  how  is  sfre  to  find 
out  what  they  like  if  not  by  observing 
what  they  do  and  doing  what  they 
like?  For  a  woman  to  join  a  club,  for 
instance,  merely  because  she  enjoyed 
it  would  be  inexcusable. 

I  don't  think  women  in  general  ex- 
pect a  man  to  know  the  object  of  a 
woman's  club.  But  of  course  if  he  sets 
out  to  tell  them  what  it  is  for,  they 

271 


if  I  Were—  are  naturally  interested  and  some  of 
them  are  anxious  to  know.  Now  if 
Mr.  Cleveland  had  undertaken  to  tell 
what  men's  clubs  are  for,  there  would 
have  been  some  propriety  in  it  since 
women  have  often  wondered  about 
this.  But  when  an  ex-president  of 
the  United  States  tells  us  that  we  or- 
ganized clubs  "to  retaliate  in  kind/' 
we  begin  to  feel  that  we  have  a  griev- 
ance, although  we  never  dreamed  of 
it  until  he  made  the  suggestion.  Per- 
sonally I  have  never  heard  a  woman 
make  the  slightest  objection  to  her 
husband  belonging  to  a  club.  It  may 
keep  him  from  home  now  and  then, 
but  women  love  peace  and  they  would 
never  make  trouble  about  a  little  thing 
like  that.  Mr.  Cleveland  warned  us 
that  if  we  attended  clubs  to  punish 
men  for  attending  clubs  the  result 
would  be  that  men  would  attend  more 
clubs.  Now  the  natural  conclusion 
from  this  would  be  that  men  like  to 
have  women  attend  clubs. 

Even  Mr.  Cleveland  had  no  objec- 
tion to  women  organizing  for  philan- 

272 


thropic,  moral  and  religious  purposes;  if  I  Were 
but  if  women  are  held  up  much  longer 
to  these  high  standards  they  will  have 
to  form  clubs  as  useless  as  men's  for 
relaxation  from  high  moral  tension. 
If  I  were  a  doctor,  by  the  way,  I 
should  cure  nervous  prostration  in 
women  by  suggestion.  That  is,  I 
should  suggest  that  when  a  woman 
has  improved  her  mind  to  a  point 
where  she  cannot  see  a  joke  she 
should  call  a  halt.  I  am  a  great  be- 
liever in  curing  other  people's  ills  by 
suggestion.  That  is  the  reason  I  have 
made  so  many  in  this  paper. 


273 


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